


The Subjects

by PaperRevolution



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Future, Character Death, Dystopia, Escape, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-08
Updated: 2013-05-05
Packaged: 2017-11-28 13:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 22,801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/675144
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperRevolution/pseuds/PaperRevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wildly AU. In a future where it is considered dangerous to feel too much of anything, nine young boys are captured and transported to a place where their chief emotion can only be fear. In their attempts to escape, friendships are formed, vows are made, and everything they think they know about themselves is irrevocably changed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Boarded the train approx. half an hour ago. Subject Enjolras is already awake and alert; has been asking questions about where we are taking them and who we are. Subject Joly complained of motion-sickness and has been medicated accordingly. Subjects Prouvaire and Feuilly both reacted badly to the sedatives, but have now been stabilised.

Subject Courfeyrac tried to escape. That was a slight complication. He had the door open and would have jumped out of the moving train. It took three of our men to hold him down while he struggled. It was as though he knew exactly where he is being taken - notes say that Subj. Courfeyrac is usually an indomitably cheerful sort, but there was wild fear in him today. He shouted that he would not let us change him; that he would not lose himself.

How wrong he is.

Subject Grantaire seems oddly aware of his fate, too, but he is resigned to it. He knows what we will do to him, and he sees no way out. Almost feel sorry for the boy. Things will be better when he realises that this is all for his own good. Their lives will be so much easier when they are without pain; without fear; without feeling. It is better to feel nothing at all than to feel everything. When they see that for themselves, they will be grateful.

We have had to put Subject Courfeyrac in cuffs; the sedatives seem to have little effect on him. He shouts at us and tears at the cuffs, and sometimes cries. He makes the other subjects uneasy. My associate wanted to get rid of him, but I would not have it. We must do this the right way; no cutting corners.

We will be back at the facility within the hour. Have everything ready.

— Dr. R. Javert.

END OF REPORT. THIS REPORT WILL SELF-DESTRUCT IN 30 MINUTES.

-0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0-

There were nine boys in the train-compartment. Nine boys from different parts of the city, but all with the same look of fear in their eyes. All, that was, except for one. This boy, angular and fair-haired, with an aquiline nose and solemn, deep-set eyes, was impassive. Ten minutes into the journey, he had stirred from his sedative-induced stupor and began to fire brisk, direct questions at the blue-uniformed official who sat in a corner of the carriage, watching them all. But the man had said nothing, and so after a time, the boy had fallen quiet.

The boy who sits opposite him was slumped against the window. His eyes are closed slackly and his breathing is shallow and ragged. The fair-haired youth is concerned for him, but presently, his intent gaze strays, landing on the boy who tried to escape. This boy is Subject Courfeyrac. Enjolras – for that is the name by which we will come to know the fair-haired boy – knows this because he heard one of the officials say so, when they were discussing what to do with him.

There is a cut just above Subject Courfeyrac's right eye. It doesn't look deep, but it's dripping a slow, viscous trickle of blood, and the other boy doesn't try to blink it away. He's a year or two younger than Enjolras; lithe and fit, with a mop of unruly dark hair and eyes that are a darker blue than Enjolras' own. He guesses him to be from a fairly wealthy family; his shirt has some brand-name Enjolras has never heard of stamped on the pocket. The boy called Courfeyrac has stopped struggling and gone limp, for now, his head tilted back against the seat. He's breathing hard, a vein standing out in his neck. Even from here, Enjolras can see where his wrists are red and inflamed from the amount he's been tugging and pulling at his bonds.

For the first time in at least an hour, Enjolras opens his mouth to speak.

"I'm not going to tell you it'll be alright," he says, "But if you struggle, you're only giving them what they want." He glances pointedly over at the still-silent official. "They like to see us like this; desperate."

Courfeyrac lifts his head, sitting up a little straighter. "How do you know what they want?" he asks, but his voice isn't unfriendly; just tense. With another quick look at the blue-uniformed man, Enjolras twists around, leaning his back against the window, the better to look at the younger boy.

Enjolras lifts his shoulders in a shrug. "I make it my business to know things like that," he says cryptically, and the boy sitting opposite Courfeyrac sniggers.

Outside, fields roll endlessly by; an expanse of yellow-brown corn. Enjolras has never been this far out of the city, before.

"I'm going to get out," says Courfeyrac, "I will, you know. I'm not going to let them – let them do that to me."

"Do what?" asks Enjolras, bluntly. Though not shy about showcasing what he does know, he is apparently equally honest in admitting what he doesn't know. But Courfeyrac swallows hard, his lips moving soundlessly for a moment, hands clenching at his sides. Then he says nothing.

"Do what?" the boy opposite Courfeyrac parrots Enjolras, but his tone is mocking rather than blunt, "The great escape-artist isn't afraid, is he?" There's a hollowness behind his words, and Enjolras realises that he isn't trying to be malicious.

"Wouldn't have tried to escape, if he wasn't scared," a voice from the other side of the carriage startles Enjolras, though it is only a low mumble. He leans forward to peer around Courfeyrac at the speaker, who sits propped against the window in the same spot Enjolras is, only at the opposite side of the aisle. As he watches, this boy tries fitfully to sit straighter. "Anyway, we're all scared." He turns his head to look in the general direction of Enjolras, Courfeyrac, and the boy who had accused Courfeyrac of being afraid. Large, hazel eyes blink owlishly in a thin face as the boy tries to focus. He is, Enjolras thinks, almost the exact opposite of Courfeyrac. His clothes are threadbare and too large; his light-brown hair much in need of cutting. A foster kid, Enjolras decides.

"I'm not afraid," the mocking boy responds, "I'm resigned." He stretches his arms up over his head and then lets them down with a low, slow sigh. But his eyes dart towards the two officials bracketing the door to the next compartment, as though expecting them to say something.

They do not. Enjolras wonders what, precisely, they are playing at, letting the subjects talk amongst themselves like this.

"Re...signed...?" Blink. Blink. Blink. Owl-eyes working to dispel the last mind-numbing traces of the sedative. Courfeyrac looks over at the boy.

"What's your name?"

He opens his mouth to speak, but the official in the corner gets there first.

"Subject Feuilly," he says, "You are not to engage with the others on a personal level. That means no first names."

Subject Feuilly sags back against the window, though this time, Enjolras thinks, as a result of dejection rather than any sedative.

So there is Courfeyrac. And there is Feuilly. Enjolras wonders what the others are called. None of them, aside from the sardonic youth opposite Courfeyrac, have said anything much. There is a boy with large, frameless glasses and messy lightish-brown hair, and a boy whose spiky hair has been dyed bright scarlet, and whose leather jacket blends in with the black leather of the back of the seat behind him. There is a round-faced boy whose head is startlingly, gleamingly bald, and beside him a reedy little thing who complained of feeling sick shortly after Enjolras had first woken up. All except for this last boy are still unconscious, their breathing deep and even. That makes nine, Enjolras realises. Nine boys.

"Where's the last one?" he asks suddenly, "The last boy. You usually take us in groups of ten."

Predictably, none of the officials say anything.

"They're not going to answer, you know," says the mocking boy; the resigned boy. He smiles a wry smile. "I'm Subject Grantaire," he says pointedly, "Who're you?"

There is the briefest of pauses. Then, "Enjolras," says he, simply.

"How can you two be so normal right now?" Courfeyrac's outburst is so sudden that both Enjolras and Grantaire startle. He yanks at his chains again, making them clink slightly. "We're trapped! They took us and drugged us and – and we – and we have to get out! You can't just – just –" but he breaks off, head bowed and shoulders shaking. "Aneille," he says, under his breath, "And Marius. And Cosette. What if – what if - ?" And, though he cannot complete the question, Enjolras knows what he's thinking. What if I never see them again?

Presently, the train begins to slow. Outside, the colour of the sky is changing, shot through with pale lilacs and brilliant oranges. Evening.

"We have arrived," one of the officials at the door announces unnecessarily, and as the train hisses to a halt, Enjolras fights to quell the faintest flicker of panic uncoiling itself at the back of his mind. He must not lose his nerve.

He must not let them win.


	2. Chapter 2

The low hiss of the train doors automatically opening seems to startle Grantaire, who sits up, reflexively, a little straighter, as though he has been disturbed from thoughts that had carried him far away from the musty carriage. Enjolras catches his look for a moment; sees that professed resignation in the grim set of his mouth, before turning to see a number of officials filing into the compartment. They converge on the boys, hoisting those who are still unconscious up over their shoulders, and yanking those who are awake none too gently to their feet. Enjolras does not try to resist the hands that pull him up out of his seat. If he's to have any hope of escape, he knows, he cannot be rash about it. He allows himself to be led out of the carriage after Subject Courfeyrac, stepping down onto the rain-slick paving-blocks of a deserted platform.

"Why's there no one about?" Enjolras hears someone say, a little behind him and to his right. "It shouldn't be this quiet, this early, should it?" He glances over his shoulder. The speaker is the boy with the glasses, whose name, like many of the others, Enjolras does not yet know. The boy speaks half to himself, not expecting an answer. There is fear in his expression, but it is measured; controlled, if only barely.

"Quiet, lad," snaps the official who has hold of the boy's right arm. The boy lowers his head slightly, a silent assurance that he intends to comply.

The last few officials disembark; the train doors hiss shut again and Enjolras cannot entirely ignore the sharp pang of something a little like loss as the train glides away, however hurriedly he might try to squash it down.

The departure of the train heralds another escape attempt from Courfeyrac, who flings himself forward so suddenly and fiercely that the two guards holding him are startled into letting go. Courfeyrac stumbles, rights himself, and begins to run along the platform, awkwardly because of the chains binding his wrists together.

He doesn't get far before one of the officials – Enjolras doesn't remember seeing this one on the journey – catches up with him, making a grab for Courfeyrac's arm. The boy struggles, but it's futile; the guard twists the arm up behind his back until Courfeyrac's face contorts with pain. Enjolras cannot see this, being behind him, but he can hear the other boy's pained grunt and imagine his expression all too easily.

"Are you going to be good, now?" asks the official, silkily, and Enjolras' stomach clenches at the obvious condescension in his voice.

There is a beat of silence, in which Enjolras becomes aware that everyone, officials and subjects alike, has stopped in their tracks to watch what will happen next to the boy who keeps trying so resolutely and recklessly to escape.

Then –

"N-no," the boy grits out, with some effort, "No chance."

There is a sickening crack as the official wrenches his arm up, hard. Courfeyrac lets out a strangled cry. A little to Enjolras' left, someone – he thinks it might be the boy named Feuilly – gasps audibly.

Courfeyrac is making a horrible sort of gulping, gasping noise. "Uhn-nh-nh-nh." He's still trying, Enjolras realises, to get free, but his arm is causing him too much pain to do anything other than jerk feebly against the official's firm hold, each new movement bringing him a fresh wave of sharp agony. Enjolras has never broken a bone in his life, and presently he's privately, fervently glad of that.

"Oh dear," says the official, mildly, feeling along Courfeyrac's arm in none to gentle a manner, "Compound fracture. If you did manage to escape, that'd just get infected and you'd die. Best to stay here with us, boy, where we can treat it for you." Courfeyrac's ensuing scream of pain makes Enjolras certain that the official must have pressed down on the break, and fury surges through him like a brief, hot tide, hastily quashed. It won't help Courfeyrac if Enjolras goes charging at the official, himself. He will have to wait, and think, and plan.

And he will plan, Enjolras thinks savagely to himself. He will find a way to make the officials pay; to bring justice to not only these subjects, these nameless boys, but the hundreds of others before them, and the hundreds more that will follow if something is not done.

"Now," says the official, perfectly calmly, "Are you going to behave?"

"Nh-nh-nh-" Courfeyrac tries between ragged breaths. Enjolras can tell he's trying to form the word 'no', again, but the guard either takes his staccato, garbled response as a submission or is confident that the boy will not be able to make any more trouble, anyway, because he only begins to walk again, dragging Courfeyrac with him.

Enjolras glances to his left and right. Grantaire, on his right, could almost appear impassive, but a muscle is twitching spasmodically in his jaw, as though he's fighting the urge to shout something. On his left, little, owlish Feuilly's face is chalk-white.

"Get them to the cars," shouts the official who'd sat in the corner on the train, keeping watch all the way. His voice is at once gruff and reedy. Enjolras and the others are marched out of the empty station – that boy's right, Enjolras thinks; it shouldn't be so deserted at this time. Several identical, gleaming black vehicles wait idling at the curbside. A fine rain begins to fall as the subjects are ushered or manoeuvred into the back seats of the cars. There are three cars, and three boys to each of them, with two officials in the front seats. Enjolras finds himself sandwiched in between Grantaire and the boy with the glasses.

"Can we talk to each other?" Grantaire asks the officials as the car begins to move, "Or will you break our arms if we try?"

The officials say nothing. Grantaire, apparently taking this as permission to speak, turns to Enjolras and says, "Did you see how shocked some of the others were, when that bloke snapped Courfeyrac's arm? I'm not at all surprised. He's lucky it wasn't his neck they decided to break."

Enjolras nods thoughtfully. Grantaire and Courfeyrac both, in their different ways, seem to know more than they ought. Perhaps they've almost been caught before, and are fugitives, like him. Perhaps that was why they are here, now.

"It's pointless, though, isn't it?" Grantaire continues, "Trying to fight back. We'll just get ourselves killed. What's that going to prove?"

"That depends," says the boy with the glasses in a quiet, even voice, "On why you're fighting back, doesn't it?"

Grantaire cranes forward, looking at him around Enjolras. He stares at the boy for a long moment, then settles for a derisive snort and slumps back in his seat. One of the officials; the one in the passenger seat, turns around, only briefly, to look at the three of them. He fixes them with a quick, stern look, then turns back to look at the road ahead.

Enjolras, much as he would like to defy the officials, has seen enough to know what happens when one tries. There is no sense in getting either Grantaire or the other boy hurt. "What are you called?" he asks the boy on his left, "Your last name, I mean," he adds hastily, before either of the officials can say anything.

"Combeferre," says the boy, turning his head to look directly at Enjolras. He has a narrow, serious face and dark brown eyes. "From Musgate. You?"

"Corinton," replies Enjolras, though in fact, he hasn't been back to Corinton in months.

After a moment, he becomes aware that Grantaire is looking at him, eyebrows raised. "Corinton," he repeats. "Huh." Then, with a touch of scorn, "You probably went to the private school, though, I suppose." He could not make the implication behind his words any clearer if he tried – he has already decided that Enjolras must be a snob; that he must have airs and graces and think himself above everyone else. The idea, something Enjolras is so often met with, rankles with him, and he says shortly:

"I went to St. John's, yes. What's your point, exactly?"

The small town is giving way to more countryside; fields, this time only of grass, blur past them. Enjolras squints into the gloom, but can make out little.

Grantaire shrugs, presently, apparently uncertain of what to say next. "Nothing," he mutters, and shifts so that his back is turned slightly towards Enjolras.

The rest of the journey passes in subdued, exhausted silence. Enjolras finds himself beginning to grow tired again, and has to shake himself awake when the car draws smoothly to a halt and the officials open the doors. Combeferre and Grantaire are fairly dragged out of the car, and the same official who yanked Combeferre out reaches in, in the next moment, for Enjolras. More officials pile out of other cars, forming a sort of tight circle around the subjects to stave off any further escape attempts. It's properly dark, now, and Enjolras can only just make out the rising bulk of a tall, perfectly rectangular building ahead of them. The boys are lead up a wide path, automatic gates opening for them at the swipe of a card from one of the officials.

Then they are at the building, and there are more doors, too many. Long corridors with dull yellow walls and fluorescent lighting; stairs and sharp corners and just so, so many doors. Enjolras, who ordinarily has a decent sense of direction, becomes quickly lost. He couldn't find his way out of here if he tried, he knows. And that is probably the point.

He looks around at the others again as they walk or are carried. The rather delicate-looking fairish

haired boy who had sat, or rather slumped, opposite him on the train is still fitfully, feverishly sleeping, an occasional soft groan escaping his lips. The boy with the bright red hair and leather jacket is now wide awake, and sporting a bloody nose and swollen eye. Enjolras supposes that perhaps he tried to escape, too. Courfeyrac, for his part, is white-faced and a little unsteady looking, but Feuilly, who had travelled in the same car as him, walks at his side, offering silent reassurance. Enjolras wonders whether the small, mousy boy might have a sort of quiet, resolute strength of his own.

Finally, they come to a door which opens into a room rather than another corridor. But the room is a long rectangle containing nothing but ten white beds, five against one wall, and another five against the opposite one. There are the same fluorescent light-fixtures in here, and no windows. Enjolras feels his heart-rate quicken.

"Lock them in," says one of the officials. And another – the one from the train – complies.


	3. Chapter 3

The clock ticks.

It's a large clock, a round white disc mounted high on the wall furthest away from the door. The door which is now locked. Enjolras can still hear the soft, sharp click of it in his head.

That was two, three, four minutes ago, though, the locking of the door? It's hard to tell, exactly, but it must have been some time, because now the footsteps of the officials have receded into nothing, and they've left behind them the thickest, heaviest silence any of them have ever felt.

The silence does not last for too long. Enjolras is wondering when they will send someone to see to Courfeyrac's arm, when the red-haired boy whose name he doesn't know yet bursts out:

"Now what are we supposed to do?"

Enjolras and the others look at him.

"What do you think we should do?" asks Enjolras levelly. "We're in a room with no windows and a locked door. We wait, and see what happens."

The boy narrows his eyes; there is something pugnacious in his look. He's spoiling for a fight, Enjolras realises.

"So, you aren't even going to try and escape?"

Enjolras shakes his head. "Not yet. You saw what happened to Courfeyrac."

"Not yet?"the other boy kicks a bedpost ferociously, then spends a moment hopping around and swearing under his breath, looking, Enjolras thinks – and probably some of the others do too, he supposes – a bit ridiculous.

"What, then?" asks the boy, having exhausted his hopping and cursing. "You're just going to sit here and wait for one of them to accidentally leave the door open or something, one day? Are you completely thick?"

Irritation prickles in Enjolras, but he shoves it away hastily and not without difficulty. That boy's scared. They're all scared. No point in arguing.

"You can decide that for yourself, once you know me a bit better," is all he says, "Don't write me off. People have a way of surprising you."

For a moment, it seems as though the boy might make some snappish retort, but in the end he only scowls and says nothing. Enjolras wanders to one of the beds at the far end of the room, where Feuilly sits next to Courfeyrac, talking quietly to him. Courfeyrac is biting his lip against the pain, refusing to cry any more than he already has.

"You think they'll get someone to come and help him, soon?" Feuilly looks up at Enjolras, who shrugs.

"They'll have to at some point," he responds, "They need us to be healthy." He wonders whether Feuilly might ask him to elaborate on this, but though the other boy gives him a quizzical look, he says nothing, and Enjolras sits down on the neighbouring bed, wondering again why there's no tenth boy in their number. There are always ten.

Nobody seems to know what to do with themselves. The room is bare except for the beds, and the boys, who have never laid eyes on one another before today (the officials always make sure of that) are faced with a choice. They can either talk, in the hopes of distracting themselves, or they can sit quiet with only their thoughts for company. Enjolras is one of the few who might be happier with the latter – he needs time to think – but, as over-dramatic as it sounds, he knows how valuable allies can be. So he turns around, facing the room at large, and says:

"My name's been down for nearly a year. I've been running from them since last October, but it's only now that they've got me."

"Three months," says Courfeyrac, voice pain-taut, "They only got me because my – my friend Aneille's father saw us together and tipped them off."

Enjolras feels something move within himself, tenuous and muted and fierce all at once. It's a little like hope, only not quite. It's almost a sad feeling, but it lifts him up nevertheless. He has the feeling, for the first time, really, that he and the others are a connected whole rather than several disparate parts. Their stories are different, but they all culminate in the same spot.

"I was living with this woman called Mrs Bergham," Feuilly offers, "She fosters kids from all over the city, and the officials get subjects from her all the time. I was trying to get together enough money to move out before I ended up being one of them, but – well, I wasn't quick enough, obviously."

The boys tell their stories; trading details, adding things here and there. Enjolras learns that the boy with hair as scarlet as his temper is named Bahorel, and they got him after he'd got into a fight at his school (this, Enjolras does not find remotely surprising). The bald-headed boy is Lesgles, and they picked him up right off the street as he was walking home from a friend's house. Sitting next to him, the boy who'd been ill with motion-sickness on the way introduces himself as Joly. The officials knocked on his family's door during dinner and he still doesn't really know what he did to attract their attention. And Combeferre, they picked him up from school too, like Bahorel, but he suspects it was because they didn't like something he wrote in one of his essays. He'd only realised in retrospect, the implications of what he'd written, and he'd spent days worrying about it, but the worrying hadn't done any good in the end, because they'd come for him anyway. This last, Enjolras can relate to. He knows what it's like to be marked down as dangerous; as being in need of help, for having the wrong opinion.

By this point, the ninth boy still hasn't woken up. He tosses and turns fitfully on his bed, a fine sheen of sweat beading on his forehead. After a while, Combeferre goes to sit near him, guarding him watchfully as though he can somehow keep his condition from worsening just by staying nearby.

"There'll be eight of us by morning," Grantaire says. Enjolras realises suddenly that this is the first time he's spoken since the car journey. He's brandishing that belligerent cynicism again, which Enjolras begins to suspect is only half-real. He is preparing himself for the worst, perhaps.

Combeferre's head bobs up. He gives Grantaire a long look, but it's Feuilly who says hurriedly:

"Don't say things like that."

He gives Grantaire what Enjolras can only describe as a quelling look. From the looks of him, Enjolras would guess that Feuilly is one of the younger ones among their number, but just now he seems like one of the older ones.

Grantaire, though, only shrugs. "Probably true, isn't it?" he mutters, but he says no more on the matter. Enjolras considers asking him to share his own story, but just then, a key slides into the lock and they all turn in unison to look at the door as it swings open. Two officials stand framed in the doorway; Enjolras recognises one of them from the train.

"Subject Courfeyrac," says the one he's never seen before, "I'd like you to come with me, please."

Courfeyrac gets to his feet. Silent and unresisting, he crosses the room. The others watch, and there is some implacable feeling of loss; of something being relinquished, because he seems to have given up.

But the boys are given very little time to dwell on this. Because in the next moment, the official from the train says curtly: "Subject Bahorel; with me, if you please."

They all look at Bahorel. He is not in want of medical attention. The official's summons can only mean one thing.

He's to be the first of their number to be Altered.


	4. Chapter 4

"Subject Bahorel," the official says again in clipped tones. "Now, please."

For a moment, the boy is frozen to the spot. His hands clench and unclench at his sides. He's sitting on the edge of one of the beds nearest the door, but in a moment he lurches upright and charges at the official from the train, knocking him backwards. Enjolras sees that though the official is burlier, they are almost the same height. Bahorel tackles the man, forcing him backwards into the corridor. He fights with uncontrolled abandon; jabs and kicks and punches flying from all directions. The other official doesn't seem to know what to do, at first. Then he shoves Courfeyrac aside so forcefully that he stumbles and almost falls.

And now things are different, because the fierce boy with the scarlet hair is outnumbered, two to one.

The medical official, who wears a badge shaped like a small silver cross pinned to the lapel of his uniform, marking him out from his co-workers, reaches out to grab the boy's arm, but carried on a surge of adrenaline, he wrenches away. The officials aren't stupid, though. With one behind him and one in front, so that no matter what, he cannot see everything; cannot protect himself from every angle, and he's bound to falter – to stumble – to fall.

It's not a blow to the head or the awful crack of a breaking bone that gets him, in the end. It's a flash of silver; a thin line out of nowhere and right back into nowhere again in the next instant, vanished from sight. Subject Bahorel curses, loudly. He staggers, disoriented, hand coming up to feel the back of his shoulder, where, Enjolras now realises, the needle went in.

"Got to run," he says, but he doesn't move. "Run." And he mumbles it a second, and a third time ("Run, run,") before his eyes roll back in his head and he starts to fall backwards. The official from the train, whose nose is bloody and whose cheek is cut, grabs hold of him before he can hit the floor, grunting under the weight of him. Unceremoniously, he hoists him into a standing position again, slinging an arm over his shoulder.

The officials remain where they are for a few seconds more. Neither of them say anything, but their message is obvious nevertheless. Take a good look, boys, because you won't be seeing him again.

"We'll remember him."

The others turn almost in unison to look at Enjolras. His words echo around the room. Bouncing off the walls, they absorb silence. They aren't incriminating words, but they say something, nonetheless. They say, we are not animals. We are no less human than you are. We can feel. We can remember. Even if that is all we can do, we can honour with memory those we lose.

The medic steps briefly back into the room to grasp Courfeyrac's arm. His chains clink quietly. He does not flinch from the man's touch. Nor does he look at him.

And then they're gone, the official from the train leading the way, dragging Subject Bahorel – no, not Subject, but Michael or William or Alan or whatever his name actually is – and the medic pushes Courfeyrac out ahead of him, and then the door is shut again, and locked, and there are seven of them left.

"Did he know, d'you think?" Grantaire asks immediately, once the lock clicks and the footsteps begin to fade, along with the grating, squeaking sound of rubber soles sliding continually along a tiled floor – the sound of someone being dragged. "Did he know what they're going to do to him?"

Enjolras shakes his head. "I don't think so," he says, "But I think not knowing can be just as bad, sometimes."

There's another moment where no one says anything. Then Combeferre, looking up, says quietly:

"So you know, then? You know what they do?"

Enjolras nods. It doesn't occur to him to try to lie.

"They... they rewire us so we don't feel things in the same way," he says, "They make us so we think like them. They mute our emotions and deaden our capacity to feel. We can still think normally, but things won't affect us in the same way. We won't care about the people we used to, or believe in the things we used to believe. We'll be blank canvases."

"And then they'll rehabilitate us," where Enjolras is matter-of-fact, Grantaire is scathing. "They'll fill our heads with their ideas and cart us off to new towns so that we can advocate their stupid system."

This is one of those moments, Enjolras thinks, when it's so quiet that you become hyper-aware of your body; of the slow pounding of your heart; of the way your palms prickle with sweat and the back of your throat is a little drier than usual. All the physical signs of fear, but his thoughts are calm; clear. He's got it under control, he tells himself. He has to keep it under control, because letting go would be like giving in to them.

"When he said got to run," Joly says suddenly, "Was he saying that he had to run, or was he telling us to do it?"

Grantaire shrugs. "Doesn't matter," he responds, "He can't run, and neither can we."

Feuilly opens his mouth to speak, then seems to decide against it. He deflates, shoulders slumping, head dipping forward slightly. His dejection is all the more arresting than Grantaire's for its raw newness.

"You shouldn't give up," says Enjolras, and Grantaire laughs harshly.

"You said yourself that fighting's pointless," he points out, and Enjolras nods.

"I know what I said," he says, "And I know what I didn't say. And I didn't say I'm giving up. As long as I'm here; as long as I'm not on one of their operating tables, I can still wait, and think, and plan, and hope."

This time, when they look at him, there is surprise in their glances. Back home, Hope is a word for girls. For teachers and grandparents and the sort of people who give you flat, saccharine smiles. It's a stupid word, back home.

Here, it is a lifeline.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0-

Courfeyrac begins to fight back again when the medic starts preparing a needle and syringe.

He's sitting on a bed exactly like the ones in the other room, except that this one has wheels, and his arms are still chained together at the wrists. The pain of the broken one fills the world. It pulses through his whole body, making him dizzy and out-of-sorts. Sometimes, black spots appear in his vision and he has to blink them away.

He tries not to look down. If he does, he'll see yellow-white bone protruding from torn flesh. He's not squeamish, normally, but it's a bit different when it's happening to you, isn't it?

He's brought back to earth by a faint clattering sound. The medic is standing at a metal tray. There are glass vials on the tray, and the sound comes from him jangling them about as he looks for the correct one. In his other hand, he's holding a long, thin syringe.

Forgetting about the pain, Courfeyrac bolts off the bed. He tries to move in the direction of the door, but he's too light-headed and dizzy. He pitches forward.

He's already trying to struggle to his feet when the official is beside him, gently helping him right himself.

Gently?

"It's all right," says the man in a low murmur, "I'm not going to hurt you, it's all right. It's just to get you to sleep so I can set the bones in your arm."

Courfeyrac expects the man to stick him with the needle the first opportunity he gets, but he doesn't he holds it where he can see, and waits for him to nod.

It seems to take a long time, but eventually, he does.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0-

I wear the uniform of an official, and by all accounts, I follow the letter of their law.

I was a subject too, once. That is why they trust me; I'm on their books as having been Altered, twenty years ago. An official named Myriel helped me escape. He gave me the hope I needed.

My life has been spent in running and waiting. I have not done Myriel proud – I have been a coward, hiding away. Now I'm ready. I intend to help these boys, as Myriel helped me.

It will not be easy. Javert, for one, has his eye on me. He does not like me.

"He is too soft," he says of me, "That Valjean."


	5. Chapter 5

Without windows, without squares of darkening sky to guide them, it's difficult for the boys to keep track of the time. The clock on the wall tells them, of course, but it seems to move so slowly that they are reluctant to believe in its accuracy.

Sometimes, one or another of them will lie down on one of the beds and try to sleep, if only because there is nothing else to do; if only as a means of escaping the locked room for a while. The lights never go off, and there's no switch that any of them can locate. Enjolras finds himself thinking, what a waste of electricity and money. It sounds stupid; he knows the others would think so. It's like something a parent would say, but it's true. There are better things to send money on. Things that actually matter.

These are possibly the last hours of the life that he knows, and he is spending them thinking about money. He almost laughs.

He paces, slowly and rhythmically. Up and down, up and down. Sometimes, he thinks he notices Grantaire watching him with an odd look on his face – it is almost wistful, but harder. It reminds Enjolras of the fierce longing in the eyes of starving children you see on the television.

"It's alright," Combeferre is saying in a quiet, even voice, "You're alright."

Enjolras turns sharply. The boy who'd sat across from him on the train is awake. His eyes, which are a peculiar, pale shade of grey-green, like the sea in winter (Enjolras has never been to the sea, but he's seen it in pictures) are glassy and unfocused. His cheeks are flushed. As Enjolras and the others watch, he stirs fitfully, trying to sit up, but Combeferre puts a hand gently on his shoulder and he sinks back down again onto the stiff, crackling white sheets.

"Stay still," he says; firm, but not bossy. Enjolras wonders distractedly how he does that. "Rest. You had us a bit worried for a while, there."

"Speak for yourself," Grantaire mutters, but Enjolras, who alone saw the way his shoulders relaxed slightly when he realised the boy's eyes were open, hides a small, slanting half-smile.

"What's your name?" Combeferre continues in that same low, measured tone, trying to set the other boy at ease.

The boy clears his throat and runs his tongue across his lips, wetting them to speak. "Jehan." His voice is croaky; hoarse. Enjolras wonders why the sedatives affected him so adversely. Feuilly has the same fever-flushed cheeks and too-bright eyes, but he's been walking and talking just like everyone else, though he's been curled up lethargic and only semi-responsive on a bed for the past hour or so. He sits up now, though, blinking.

"No first names," he says, eyes going very wide.

"Wh-what?" the boy named Jehan is uncertain; disoriented. He's having trouble connecting the pieces of where he is and why he's here. "Where – where's? - Oh – the field – the boy – I ran, and then..." his voice trails off, but Enjolras can feel the panic and despair rising in him like a quiet tide. He goes and sits beside Combeferre.

"They don't let us call each other by our first names," he explains. While Combeferre goes out of his way to be reassuring, Enjolras is blunt. There's no point in soft voices and slow movements; they won't make this any less of a nightmare than it really is. "They don't want us getting to know each other on a personal level. Basically," he adds tightly, "They don't want us viewing each other as people at all."

"They were trying to get that boy..." Jehan says, more to himself than to anyone else, "But I put his hat on, and his coat, and I ran like they were chasing me...and then they got me instead."

Something in Enjolras catches, like a dam on the cusp of bursting. They take us and Alter us because they think we're dangerous. But it's always the ones with the most heart – it's always the good ones who get it. They call it delivering us; helping us grow up, but it's not. They're taking away our humanity, is what they're doing.

He's thinking this when Grantaire says, incredulously:

"You gave up your life? For a stranger?"

Jehan thinks about this, then nods gingerly, as though the motion hurts him a little. "I suppose so," he responds, and there is surprise in his voice.

Bossuet and Joly are round-eyed; disbelieving in an altogether different way than Grantaire. Combeferre, for the first time that Enjolras has seen, is smiling, and the smile transforms his thin, solemn face, making him look younger.

They are all so swept up in what Jehan has done; this purely altruistic act, that none of them notice the key turning in the lock. The door swings open and two officials – a different two than before – move inside with brisk, clipped footsteps.

"Instructions to check on you all," one of them; the taller, fair haired one, says shortly. Enjolras feels some tightly coiled spring of tension inside him relax a little. The men both wear silver crosses on their uniforms. Only medics.

"J- this boy needs your attention," Combeferre tells the officials, and Enjolras is surprised at the steadiness of his voice. "So does Feuilly."

"No. No, I don't," Feuilly protests feebly. He sits up again with the slow, tentative movements of an old man. One of the officials goes to him, flatly ignoring his mumblings, and the other to Jehan.

The boys are ground into silence by the mere presence of the officials. Only Jehan and Feuilly speak, and only to answer the medics' questions ("Can you sit up, Subject Prouvaire? Does that hurt?"; "Can you try and look at this little light for me as it moves, Subject Feuilly?", and so on).

A long time seems to pass before the officials stand up straight and begin to move towards the door. Enjolras sees the look they give one another, as though in silent communication that something is not as it should be, and he feels his own stirrings of unease. What's going on?

The officials reach the door, and look back.

"Rest," one of them says briefly; curtly. "You will need it."

Then they are out in the corridor, and in the next moment, the door is shut quickly by the official who attended to Jehan, and the key rattles in the lock.

"What're you smiling at?" Grantaire demands, and Enjolras follows his gaze to Feuilly, who does look curiously pleased with himself, in his quiet way.

In response, the other by silently holds up a silver-grey ring of small keys.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0-

Courfeyrac wakes to the sound of voices, low and urgent.

"We need another Subject more than ever," one of them is saying, "We tested both of those boys, as you asked, and one of them has a weak heart. The other is only a malnourished foster brat, but still..."

"We'll have to patrol again. Tell Javert -"

"I will not tell Javert anything." This third voice, Courfeyrac recognises, though it takes him a moment to identify him as the medic who had been so oddly kind to him. "Javert... is a busy man. You will let me handle this."

"But, Valjean -"

"I will not hear of it. We need no more patrols, and no more Subjects. It will waste time. Now please, go and log those test results before you forget."

There is grumbling from the other two voices, too low to hear properly, and then footsteps and a door opening and slamming shut, and then they are gone. Courfeyrac blinks his eyes open, and the world blurs slowly into focus.

He is no longer chained, and he is on a bed in the same room he remembers being brought to by the medic he now knows to be named Valjean. His arm, which feels stiff and sore but no longer anything close to the excruciating jabs of pain it had pulsed with before, is in a rigid cast similar to the one he'd worn the time he'd fallen out of a tree when he was eight, except that this one is plain white, where that one had been bright yellow and covered in his friends' scrawled signatures and doodles. He opens his mouth and what comes out is:

"Why were you nice to me? The other officials are complete tossers."

He realises his mistake instantly and goes rigid with fear, expecting another broken bone or worse. You don't talk like that about officials. What had he been thinking?

And that's just it. He hadn't been thinking. Because he never does.

But the man named Valjean only turns around to look at him with a surprised bark of half-laughter. "Ah," he says, "You're awake. How do you feel?"

"All – all right, I suppose," replies Courfeyrac, nonplussed, propping himself up on the elbow of his good arm. "Who is it that has a dodgy heart? He's going to be alright, isn't he? Whichever one it is?"

Valjean nods gravely. "I will do everything in my power to make sure of it," he says. "But listen, in a few minutes, I will have to take you back to the others. You must act afraid; tell them how awful I am, how much I scared you."

Courfeyrac stares at him, completely bewildered.

"Will you do that? I will try to help you all, if I can. But you cannot tell anyone. Not even the other Sub- not even the other boys."

Noticing the way he catches himself over the word 'subjects', his face tightening as though he has uttered some profanity, Courfeyrac nods.

"Thanks," he says, "But, why d'you want to help us? You could lose your job – or – or go to jail – or something."

Valjean gives him a strange, saturnine sort of smile. "I am doing my duty," he says, "Just as they believe they are doing theirs. Now come on, boy. Let us go. Best scared face you can manage, remember. I'm a hideous tyrant."

He laughs again, that same short, mirthless bark as before. He helps Courfeyrac to sit up, and then to stand.

It is only when they are out in the corridor that Courfeyrac realises the meaning of Valjean's strange laugh. It is as though he believes his own words.


	6. Chapter 6

"What did you do?" asks Joly, his eyes going very wide, "What if – what if the other official had been the one to lock the door? He'd have realised his keys were missing and... and..."

"And probably beat Subject Feuilly to a bloody pulp right in front of us all, yeah," Grantaire finishes with a sort of bluntness both aggressive and resigned, "That was stupid."

Feuilly shrugs; a brief, jerky motion. He doesn't meet Grantaire's eyes.

"It was worth a try," he says. "Why d'you call us Subject this and Subject that? You sound like them."

Grantaire rolls his eyes. "Who died and made you the Preacher, Subject Feuilly?"

Enjolras slides off his bed. With quick, purposeful steps, he makes his way to where Grantaire is sitting, legs stretched out in front of him, head tilted back against the wall. He stands in front of Grantaire, looking at him wordlessly until the other boy gives in to his discomposure and meets his gaze.

"You are afraid," says Enjolras, and his bluntness is of an altogether different sort than Grantaire's. "If you make friends with an of us; if you start to care about any of us, it'll be worse for you if they take us."

But Grantaire only snorts derisively. "If," he scoffs, "I think you mean when. When they take us, like they took Subject Bahorel. I wonder who'll be next; Subject Combeferre, maybe? No more writing essays about republics for you, after that. Or maybe it'll be you, Enjolras. Doesn't matter, though, does it? Whatever order they decide to take us in, we're all going to end up a bunch of mindless drones, anyway. Just because we've got a bunch of keys, d'you think we're actually going to get out of here? They'll just kill us all, if we try, or bung us in a room and do the procedure without making proper preparations, so we end up even more screwed up in the head. What's that going to prove?"

There's a moment of quiet. Grantaire and Enjolras look at one another.

"Subject," Enjolras says, "You forgot the Subject. I'm Subject Enjolras, remember? You wouldn't want to be too bothered when they come for me, would you?"

For a few long seconds, Grantaire stares at him with blank openness. Then he makes a sound somewhere between a grunt and a scoff, and resumes staring at the wall behind Enjolras' head. Enjolras remains where he is just for a moment, fixing him with an intent look, but when Grantaire doesn't respond, he returns to his own bed. Nearby, Jehan Prouvaire is shivering again, and Combeferre has a firm, gentle hand on his shoulder for comfort.

"'M alright, just...c-cold," Jehan mumbles, "Isn't anyone else?"

Some of the others exchange glances.

"No," says Lesgles nervously at the same time that Joly says "A little," and Feuilly says "A bit".

Enjolras is concerned for Jehan, but just presently, there are more pressing things occupying his thoughts. "We need to decide what to do about these keys," he tells the others, "We have to hide them, for now, for a start."

"Where?" Joly looks at him askance. Enjolras thinks for a moment. Then:

"Pass me the keys," he's up again, and going over to Feuilly, who complies, handing over the little, jangling ring of dull grey. As many as ten or eleven keys clink together as Enjolras takes them. He climbs up onto the bed, Feuilly craning his head back to stare at him in bewildered curiosity.

Enjolras, now standing on the bed, is tall enough to reach over and remove the clock from where it hangs on the wall. He drops the ring of keys over the little hook made to keep the clock in place, and then replaces the clock over them, where it hangs just as before.

"That'll do," he says, just as a key begins to turn in the lock. He vaults off the bed, sitting down as calmly as he can manage on his own bed as the door is opened. The medic from before pushes Courfeyrac into the room.

"That'll teach you not to go running off, won't it?" he says roughly, and then disappears again, shutting the metal door behind him with a resounding clang.

The others converge on him the moment the door closes.

"Courfeyrac! Are you alright?"

"He didn't hurt you, did he?"

"Were you scared?"

"Does your arm still hurt?"

Enjolras remains where he is until the fuss has died down and Courfeyrac has answered all their questions, ("I'm fine,"; "No, he just shouted a lot. Bit of an idiot, really,"; "No! I;m not a wimp!" and "A bit, but nowhere near as much", respectively). Then he gives Courfeyrac what he hopes is a reassuring smile, rises to join the others again, and says in a fierce undertone:

"We're getting out, tonight."

Courfeyrac stares at him. "How?"

"Feuilly stole keys from an official!" Lesgles says triumphantly, and Feuilly's face colours at the word 'stole'. Courfeyrac, though, lets out a whoop of exhilarated relief. He's bouncing on the balls of his feet, a grin beginning to animate his face.

"How're we going to rescue Bahorel, though?" he wants to know, and everyone looks at him.

"Courfeyrac," says Combeferre, and though his voice is even, there is a deep sadness in it for the boy he did not really know and likely had precious little in common with. "It's been hours. It's probably too late."

Courfeyrac makes a motion as though to fold his arms stubbornly, before remembering that one of them is held rigid in a cast. "They might not have done it yet, though," he pints out, "It takes ages to prepare, doesn't it? They have to do loads of different things, right?"

By way of a reply, Enjolras nods. "That's true," he concedes, "And I think you're right – we should try and save him. But Combeferre's right, too – we need to be prepared in case they have done it already."

For a few moments, this sobers them all. Enjolras looks at the faces of these boys who had been strangers yesterday, but are now allies; friends, even. Jehan Prouvaire, sitting up now, has fear in his light-coloured eyes, but his face is set; resolute. Joly and Bossuet exchange glances, passing between them a sort of apprehensive lifting feeling that verges on excitement, but tempered, too, by insistent fear. Combeferre's gaze is downturned; thoughtful. Like Enjolras, Feuilly's eyes flicker from one taut face to the next, and there is concern in them. His gaze stops and holds on Courfeyrac, who shuffles his feet restively, as though he cannot wait to get out.

Grantaire is still on his bed. He is watching them all from a distance, his expression inscrutable.

"We need a distraction," Combeferre breaks the silence in his measured, matter-of-fact way. "A way of turning their attention elsewhere so we can escape unnoticed. And if we're going to try and save Bahorel, we need to find out where he is, first..." His expression is distant; he's thinking.

"What?" Courfeyrac demands. "What is it? What're you planning? You've go an idea, haven't you?"

"Hold on. Hang on a minute. I'm trying to think."

Courfeyrac opens his mouth to say something, and then shuts it again abruptly. Combeferre is pacing slowly in a circle, hands clasped together behind his back. The pose makes him look older than he is, Enjolras thinks.

"If we knew who they were going to take next," Combeferre muses, "No...even if we did, that'd take too long – er, all right, this is even harder than I thought it'd be – um... Maybe, if we made a big enough fuss, they'd take one of us to try and scare the rest. They can't punish us all at once, can they? So that'd be the best way to keep us quiet. And, say if that person had the keys... then they could let themselves and Bahorel out... and then come and let us all out..."

Enjolras considers this. "But how would we make sure that the keys were on whoever they took? We don't know who they'll take – unless -" he cuts himself off abruptly.

"Come on," Courfeyrac urges him, "What're you thinking?"

There is a beat. The air seems to press tighter; closer around Enjolras, as though it has weight. He becomes profoundly aware in that instant, that if this goes wrong, it may be the end of everything; the end of his life as the person he is now.

It makes him more sad than afraid. He is resolved. Ready, even.

"I'm going to take the keys," he says, "I know what to do."

Grantaire starts upright. "What the hell? Are you mad? Have you completely lost it?"

"You can't!" Jehan puts in, "What if it doesn't work, whatever it is? What if they just – just kill you?"

This has already crossed Enjolras' mind, but he shoves the thought away hastily. "It'll work," he assures them all. "It will."

He hopes he sounds a good deal more confident than he feels.


	7. Chapter 7

They pound on the door; lift the beds by their ends and slam them down again. The noise fills the room.

Louder still are their voices. "Let us out! Let us out! Let us out!" A litany; again and again, until their throats are sore; until the words scorch their insides on the way up. They are all of them exhausted.

"Let us out! Let us out! Let us out!"

It does not surprise Enjolras that Grantaire is the first to collapse back onto his bed, flinging his arms out at his sides and saying with a voluble resignation: "Might as well stop now. No one's going to come. They're probably enjoying this."

Enjolras, along with Courfeyrac, Feuilly and Jehan Prouvaire, is by the wide grey door. He turns his head only briefly to reply: "They will come. They'll have to; all this noise'll make the other subjects restless, too." His throat is dry; he licks his lips and swallows, then goes back to pounding at the door and shouting with all the ferocity his fatigued body can muster.

Not for the first time, he wonders about the other subjects in other rooms like this one. All boys, under the age of eighteen, but over the age of fourteen. He knows, oh God, he knows only too well the pragmatism behind this demographic. He understands in a way that the others don't, yet.

The light is still on. Does it ever go off? The constant, unflickering glare of that fluorescent light seems to herald an implicit invasion of their privacy. It denies them even the dark in which they might collect their thoughts, or cry, or pretend to themselves for an hour or two that they are back at home in their own bedrooms.

Combeferre, Joly and Lesgles each have hold of the metal bedposts of one of the beds. Out of rhythm with one another, they heave them up and slam them down again onto the tiled floor. There are cracks spidering across the tiles, now, and it gives Enjolras as strange satisfaction. The beds, it would seem, are quite heavy; the boys are breathless, their energy waning.

"Let us out! Let us out! Let us out!"

It's Jehan, though, who is faring the worst. His skin is clammy; ash-pale. Little beads of sweat stand out at his hairline. He forces out his words between shallow gasps. "Let – us – out! Let – us -"

He staggers, and Courfeyrac and Feuilly move to support him at once, guiding him back to sit on the same bed Grantaire has flung himself onto. His breathing rattles a little in his chest, and Enjolras is worried.

"I'm – alr-alright..." he manages, gulping in air, "Just n-need a – minute."

"Don't be stupid," Courfeyrac protests with a sort of vehement, unthinking care, "You're practically killing yourself there."

Jehan's face pales, and Feuilly says reproachfully: "Don't exaggerate. It's not helping." To Jehan, he goes on, "You just need to sit for a while, that's all. You'll be alright in a bit."

But the glance he shoots at Enjolras is full of concern for the other boy, and Enjolras can see why the officials chose Subject Feuilly. Despite the fact that his own eyes are a little glassy and distracted; his shoulders quivering from exertion, he thinks chiefly of the others; first of Courfeyrac, and now Jehan.

"You can't say anything," Grantaire says dryly. And then, to no one in particular, "Whew, look at those eyes. He looks high. Whatever you've been taking, Subject Feuilly, I want some."

His sarcasm grates on Enjolras. It's so obviously just another aspect of his devil-may-care act. He's debating whether it's even worth saying something to Grantaire about this when the door flies open with so much force that it hits the inner wall. This time, there aren't two officials, but three, which seems like a step up in security. Enjolras tries to think of that as a good sign.

One of them is the official from the train; the one who sat in the corner the whole way, watching them; giving orders. There is something flat about his dark eyes.

"What the devil,"demands another of the men, the one standing next to him, "Is going on?"

"We want you to let us go," says Enjolras, as though it's that simple.

This provokes exactly the desired reaction. The men exchange glances, spluttering amongst themselves.

"Don't be ridiculous," the one from the train says finally; flatly, "You're here for your own good; we aren't about to let you go, simply because you ask us to. You're children."

Enjolras draws in a deep breath. This man has just given him exactly the opportunity he was in almost equal parts hoping for an dreading.

"For our own good," he repeats, and his voice is smooth and clear and level; no vibrations; no hitch of breath or telling pause. "To keep the peace, you mean? Isn't that why you take Subjects – to prevent wars and uprisings? To keep the country safe?"

The official nods, uncertain of precisely where he's going with this. The other boys are watching raptly. They know something's coming, but they don't know what.

"Funny way of keeping the country safe," Enjolras goes on, "Refusing to tell us that there's a war going on outside our borders, and that the subjects aren't really sent off to live quiet new lives after they've been Altered. They're sent off to fight. To fight in a war they didn't even know existed. A war for fuel to keep your homes warm; to keep your technology running." He's still calm – his voice is strident, but not raised. He looks right into the eyes of the official from the train. "None of this is for our own good. We'll be dead before we're twenty, fighting in your battles."

The official's face is the colour of old porridge, and his voice is slightly strained when he says: "What are you blathering on about, lad? I don't know who you've been talking to -"

"-My father," Enjolras interjects; his trump card. The reason he's been running for so long. "That's how I know. What's the name of the man you work for? The big boss who pulls all the strings? Officer Enjolras, that's what."

There is a beat. A moment of the most protracted, profound silence any person in that room has ever felt.

Then:

"Take him," says the official from the train, and the strangest combination of triumph and fear wells up in Enjolras as the other two officials step forward to take his arms.

He doesn't resist.

They bear him out of the door silently, one foot in front of the other. Off to be Altered; off to be hard-wired for war. He has to remind himself that this isn't what it seems to be; that the keys are in his shoe, jabbing into the side of his foot with every step forward.

"I hope you're happy," says the official from the train, shutting the door behind them.

Enjolras doesn't say a word.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0-

"He got them to do it," Grantaire says with flat disbelief, "He actually got them to take him."

The others, though, have altogether different concerns.

"D'you think it's true about the war?" asks Feuilly, shuddering, "Think about all those other boys who were just like us, getting sent off to fight for something they didn't even believe in. Do you think other countries do it, too? What if there are millions of Subjects, all over the world? Doesn't anyone ever -" he breaks off, breathing hard, "If no one ever -"

Combeferre comes over from where he's been standing, further back. He leans forward against the foot of the bed, hands curved around the metal poles to support himself.

"Hey," he says quietly, "You're making your heart-rate go up, and whatever's in that sedative has already increased yours and Jehan's heart-rates exponentially. You need to calm down before you make yourself ill."

"Exp-o-nen-tially," Grantaire drawls, "Ooh. Who even uses words like that in everyday conversation?"

"Why's it done those two in and not the rest of us?" Courfeyrac wants to know, and Combeferre looks thoughtful.

"I'm not sure," he says finally, "It must just affect some people differently than others. That's all."

Joly, too, has been thinking. "So – so that's what'll happen to us?" his voice emerges somewhat higher pitched than is usual, "We're going to go and – and fight in a war?"

"It's like something from one of those really bad sci-fi novels Aneille reads -" Courfeyrac starts, and then cuts himself off, because thinking about Aneille is painful.

"We're going to get out, though," says Lesgles, though it's obvious he doesn't really believe it, "Enjolras will find Bahorel and then we'll all get out."

Now that their half-baked plan has been set in motion, none of them can dare believe the best of it.

Just now, there comes the sound of a key turning in the lock again. The boys exchange nervy glances. Surely it can't already be time -

But the two officials – why are they all so eerily interchangeable? Same close-cut hair; same impassive faces – have come not to take away another boy, but to bring a new one. The tenth Subject, so far absent. The official on the left pushes the boy forcibly into the room and he stumbles, dazed, the sedative only just beginning to wear off.

"New friend for you," says one of the officials, his lips twitching, "Don't get too familiar, though. Makes goodbyes so much harder."

Then he steps backwards and the door is closed again with that neat, now familiar click.

The new boy raises his head, blinking. His dark hair curls softly at his temples. His eyes are a light blue. He looks as though he might be one of the younger among them.

Courfeyrac's breath leaves him in a rush.

"Marius!"

The boy blinks at him. Courfeyrac is shaking his head vigorously, as though the new boy is a figment of his imagination and this movement might dispel him.

"Marius, you idiot, I told you to run!"

"He did," says a quiet voice, and they all look at Jehan. His face is white, so white, and his eyes are wide. To the boy named Marius, he says, "I put on your hat and coat. And they got you anyway."

Marius' eyes, too, go round with recognition.

"Oh," says Jehan in a tiny voice. "Oh."

Then his eyes roll back in his head and he slumps backwards, limp.


	8. Chapter 8

There are corridors, endless corridors, and a quietness that Enjolras, in his overcrowded state of mind, doesn't really notice. He's focusing on trying to remember every corner they turn; every door they pass. They go up a flight of stairs, and he documents it in his memory. They are giving him everything he needs, he tells himself, in an attempt to subdue the pounding of his heart.

The official from the train keeps looking sideways at him, his expression inscrutable. Enjolras tries his hardest to keep his own features equally impassive.

He wonders what his father will do now. Is he nearby? Will he know that his son is about to be Altered? It isn't difficult to imagine what the older Enjolras would say, were he beside him now. You are lucky, he would say, your life will be so much easier and simpler once you've been Altered. You should thank us. This, Enjolras knows, is what makes men like his father so dangerous: they really do believe they are doing the right thing, and there's no convincing them otherwise.

The door, when they reach it, is just an ordinary door, exactly like any of the others they've passed along the way. It's plain and grey, with a smallish white handle and a lock just beneath it. One of the officials takes a ring of keys from his belt and, after a moment of searching for the right one (Enjolras observes that it's a particularly large silver-grey key) slides it into the lock.

He opens the door. Enjolras is marched inside.

It's bright – brighter even than the other room. Pervasive, unforgiving fluorescence that makes Enjolras blink a few times to adjust. The room is maybe half the size of the one he's just left. There are three beds in it, lined up in a row with their white headboards against the back wall. Two of them are empty, but a boy lies on the far left one. He no longer wears his leather jacket, but they haven't bothered to change his clothes for a hospital gown or pyjamas or anything of that sort. Enjolras knows that his head, beneath the bandages, will be bald, dyed red hair shorn away for the operation. A thin, transparent tube emerges from his nose, regulating his breathing.

The bandages are so white. Enjolras can't take his eyes off them.

Subject Bahorel has already been Altered.

Enjolras' breath catches in his throat, but he doesn't say anything. He lets the officials lead him over to the middle bed. One of them pushes him down by his shoulders, so that he's sitting on the edge of it.

It is only now that he realises Bahorel's eyes are open. The other boy stares up blankly at the ceiling. His expression is slack, all the muscles relaxed. If he notices Enjolras' entrrance at all, he doesn't react.

The quick-tempered boy with his ready, rapped-out words and his volatile, coiled-tight energy no longer exists.

Enjolras has seen Altered subjects before, but he's never fully prepared for that placid, vacant gaze. It makes him feel cold in some deep place he can't name. He has an urge to try to get Bahorel's attention; to say his name. Something. Anything. But he doesn't; he's seen enough to realise that it'd be no good.

Anger stirs in him; simmering, slow burning, but no less fervid for that. It's the same anger that awoke in him when the official on the platform broke Courfeyrac's arm. Now, though, it has a sharper edge of urgency.

Something in his expression must change, because the official from the train says in a clipped voice:

"Sedate him."

Enjolras' shoulders tense. He's considered that this might be a possibility, but he had hoped that if he stayed quiet and passive, they might let him alone. A futile hope. He knew that then, really, and he knows it now. Still, his shoulders tense and he fights the urge to stand and try to bolt, like Courfeyrac had done.

It doesn't really hurt, the needle going in. It's just a sort of spreading coldness. It lasts only a moment. Then he's gone.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0-

Somewhere one flight of stairs and innumerable corridors away, seven boys cluster around the immobile body of an eighth. He lies on his back, legs sprawled at odd angles; one arm flung out to the side. His chest rises and falls quickly; shallowly.

"Jehan," Combeferre crouches beside him, "Jehan."

He shakes his shoulder, first gently and then more urgently. Jehan Prouvaire makes no response.

"He saved me," says the new boy, Marius, quietly and slowly, as though still trying to understand it. "He saved me."

"He's going to be alright, isn't he?" this is Courfeyrac, who in his anxiousness, cannot keep still. He bounces up and down on the balls of his feet; looks at Marius; looks at Jehan again.

"I can't believe you got caught," he says inconsequentially when no one moves to reassure him, "How'd they find you?"

Marius shrugs. Courfeyrac, somewhat to his surprise, doesn't press the issue.

For a long moment, no one says anything. The loudest sound is the uneven in-and-out of Jehan's breath.

Every eye is on him when he opens his eyes.

There is a surprisng focus to his gaze; an intensity.

"Run," he says to Marius, "Run!" The word hacks its way out of his throat, serrated. "Go – they'll – get – me instead."

And Marius realises that in that moment, he's back in the field with its scrubby, dotted formation of trees at the edges. In his mind, they are in danger, yes, but it isn't all over, yet.

"He can't run," Combeferre says steadily, "Jehan, look at me."

Jehan's breathing catches so violently that his back arches. His eyes roll again, madly. His right hand scrabbles for purchase on something invisible, and Combeferre takes it, pressing between his palms the cold, clammy skin, trying fruitlessly to bring even a little warmth.

"Go," he tells Marius, wild-eyed, the word choked out on a hot tide of delirious panic. He tries to sit up, and then Combeferre's hands are on his shoulders again; gentle, firm, steadying. Marius' face is almost as white as Jehan's; his eyes are fixed on the other boy. Courfeyrac stands close beside him, for the first time entirely at a loss for anything to say.

Feuilly goes back to the door and begins again to pound on it with all his strength. "Help!" he shouts hoarsely, "Help! J- Subject Prouvaire needs your help! Please!" Quieter, he says "They can't let this happen."

"They can," Grantaire's voice is grim; there's nothing whatsoever sardonic in it, now. "Why do they care if he dies?"

But Feuilly redoubles his efforts, fairly flinging himself against the door. "Help him!" he cries, "Help him – you inhuman – you selfish – you – you -"

He slumps against the door, shoulders shaking. "Our lives – have no – value to them," he gets out, in between breaths. "He can't – not before we at least try and escape – what about his family?"

Combeferre looks up for a moment to meet his eyes. He says nothing, but the words are heavy in the air, nevertheless.

They will mourn him.

Jehan's eyes are glassy and unfocused again, now. They flicker shut and then open again. His breath gutters and rattles in his throat. His hand clutches convulsively at Combeferre's.

"It's alright," Combeferre says quietly, "It's okay, it's alright."

Courfeyrac takes an involuntary step forward. Joly and Lesgles shuffle closer together.

"It's alright."

For a fraction of a moment, Jehan's eyes open very wide. His lips move soundlessly. Then his breath leaves him in a jagged, rushed release. That is all. A brief sigh, and then complete silence.

His eyes are still open, and Combeferre gently closes them, extracting his hand from the now slack grip of the other boy.

And, too late, the door bursts open so suddenly that Feuilly goes stumbling forward onto his knees, flinging out a hand to break his fall. He remains where he is, making no effort to get up.

"What's all this?" asks the official. None of them have seen him before.

"You didn't come," says Feuilly, his voice thick with barely withheld feeling. "You didn't come. You killed him."

The official's lip curls. "Get up," he says, crisply. Then: "Someone explain what is going on, now."

To everyone's surprise, it's Grantaire who answers him.

"I'd have thought that's pretty obvious," he tells the official. "Subject Prouvaire's dead, probably because you didn't medicate him properly. Looks like you're one down, again." His tone is nothing short of scathing. Even the official himself looks taken aback for a moment.

Then he strides forward, stepping around Feuilly, who scrambles out of his way. He pushes Combeferre forcibly aside and, as though he weighs nothing; as though he is nothing more than a sack of rubbish, reaches down and slings the body of Jehan Prouvaire over his shoulder.

Then he straightens up again, and regards them all coolly out of watery blue eyes.

"They'll burn the corpse," his mouth twists upwards in something resembling a smile. "If you smell something awful, boys, that'll be it."

And he grins at them. Properly, actually grins. Combeferre makes a sharp noise as though someone's punched him in the stomach. Courfeyrac starts forward, and Marius has to hold him back.

The official lets out a short chuckle. Then he turns and leaves, and a flash of Jehan's light red-gold hair is the last they see of the boy who gave his life so that one in their number might live freely.

It is perfectly quiet in the yellow-lit room.

The silence speaks volumes.


	9. Chapter 9

In this room, the seven of them left there learn that it is possible to grieve for someone you hardly know. They learn, too, that grief makes you see things in new ways. They learn that silence has a weight and a shape (how else could it settle over them in the way that it does?) and they learn that the dead leave behind them an unexpected imprint. The place where Jehan Prouvaire lay, limbs twitching in his last futile attempts to draw breath into his body, now draws every eye in the room, inexorably. It is conspicuous in it's emptiness; in the fact that he is no longer there. That spot is not cold, not really, but the absence of his fevered heat makes it seem colder. A magnet, it attracts their gazes but repels their footsteps – they eschew it, retreating to the back of the room. Even Grantaire, sceptic that he seems to be, joins them. Without his veneer of nonchalance, he seems lost.

Marius sits on the edge of a bed. His hands twist together in his lap. He does not seem to know where to look; his eyes find Courfeyrac's, and then slide away again.

“It's my fault, isn't it?” quick and disjointed, the outburst startles the others, who all turn to look at him almost simultaneously. “That boy – Jehan – he died because of me.”

Combeferre begins to shake his head, but before he can say anything, Grantaire, looking not at Marius but up at the blank ceiling, says:

“Well, yeah. It is your fault, sort of. But not as much as it's their fault.”

Marius inhales sharply. No one says anything for a few moments, because none of them can deny the truth of this. The real blame lies with the officials, but had Jehan never seen Marius fleeing for his life, and had the officials not brought Marius to join their number when Jehan was at his most vulnerable, he would still be alive, now. Alive, and probably free.

It's Courfeyrac who, a little belatedly, comes to his friend's defence. “Don't be an idiot,” he tells Grantaire, and there is something decidedly forced about the casual lightness of his tone, “Marius didn't do anything wrong.” To Marius, he goes on, “You were just, I don't know, in the wrong place at the wrong time. That's all. Not your fault that you're really crap at running fast. That would've helped, but, you know. What can you do?” He tries to fill the room with his bright chatter, but the attempt falls flat, and he peters out, ground, for the first time, into submission.

Grantaire, wholly unperturbed by Courfeyrac's comment, asks of no one in particular: “So, how long d'you think Enjolras'll take to get out, if he manages it at all?” His unconcerned drawl is back, but it doesn't deceive Combeferre, who notices him sitting up straighter, hands crumpling the sheet beneath him and then releasing it as though he doesn't quite know what to do with them.

“I don't know,” he says, giving Grantaire a shrewd look, “But if he's too much longer, I think we should – well, I think we should worry. In theory, it wouldn't take him too long to tell Bahorel what's going on, wait 'til they're left alone, and then get out of there. If he's gone more than a few hours, he's obviously been delayed for some reason, or -” he pauses, and the alternative hangs in the air even before he says it aloud, “- or they've got to him already.”

“Maybe he overdid it with the whole 'telling us everything he knows in front of the officials' plan,” Grantaire says quietly, without even a trace of his usual sarcasm. But Combeferre is no longer paying attention; his eyes have fallen on Feuilly, who alone still sits on the floor near the door. He hasn't moved since the official left, taking the limp figure that had once been Jehan with him.

“Feuilly,” says Combeferre, standing up, “You alright? Feuilly?” Concern vibrates taut in his voice.

“”Wh- oh, yeah,” Feuilly startles, glancing over his shoulder at the others, “Yeah, I'm fine.” He says it a second time, as though to reassure himself, “I'm fine.”

Combeferre is unconvinced. Right now, it's too easy to imagine Feuilly ending up like Jehan, and, though Combeferre has only exchanged a few words with the other boy, he finds that somehow the thought terrifies him. He goes to Feuilly and sits down beside him. Unlike Jehan, who spent his final waking hours in a hyper-alert, fever induced state which teetered always on the brink of panic, Feuilly seems lethargic and unfocused. Where Jehan's face was flushed, his is very white.

“Do you feel ill?” Combeferre asks him, “Tired? Feverish? Does anything hurt?”

“What're you, the bloody doctor?” Grantaire sounds derisive enough, but his hands are balled up tight around fistfuls of crisp, white bedsheet.

“I'm alright,” says Feuilly, and though his voice is quiet, it's steady. “I just can't – the way that official just -” what began as an excuse for his current symptoms (he could pass them off as manifestations of shock, couldn't he?) surges now into the same helpless, indignant anger that had exploded out of him in quick, anxious starts earlier that evening. “How do they do it, every day? He just flung him over his shoulder like a – like a piece of meat, or something. He really didn't care. At all. I can't understand how people like that exist, or how anyone genuinely believes they're making the world a better place. It's all just mindless death and war and – and -” he cuts himself off abruptly, forcing himself to breathe deeply. Combeferre, his mouth a tight, worried line, watches him.

“I know,” he says simply, because what else is there to say?

Feuilly closes his eyes tight and then opens them again. Is he trying to banish some unwelcome image? To get rid of what they all wish was just a nightmare? Is he tired? Weaker than he's letting on? Combeferre can't help second-guessing every movement he makes, now, and he knows it's not altogether conducive, but he can't help it.

“They can't all be like that,” Feuilly continues, more softly, now, “There must be some of them who are just doing their job; supporting their families. There must be some of them who don't really know – who really think they're doing the right thing.”

Combeferre nods in what he hopes is a reassuring sort of way, but he's thinking of how Feuilly's eyes seem to have trouble focusing on his face. He has to take a moment to tell himself, this isn't Jehan. He'll be alright.

There are quiet, quick footsteps as Joly and Lesgles join them, the former sitting down beside Feuilly; the latter beside Combeferre. Now they form a loose semicircle.

“What's the matter?” asks Joly. Combeferre immediately wishes he hadn't.

“Nothing,” he says hurriedly, and Feuilly gives him a grateful look.

Joly, though, doesn't seem to think that's an acceptable answer. “Feuilly, what day is it?”

Pause. “Wednesday?”

Lesgles stares at Joly, eyebrows crinkling in a 'why are you asking him stupid questions?' expression.

“How old are you?”

Pause. “Sixteen. Only just.”

“What's two plus three?”

Pause.

“Five.”

Joly gives Combeferre a glance that can only be described as frantic. “You're hesitating more than you should,” he tells Feuilly, “That means your responses are slower than they should be.”

“Come on,” this is Grantaire again, “Can we not pretend to be in some sort of shitty medical drama? You're overreacting.”

Courfeyrac stifles a laugh, but Marius is watching the little group by the door with a new wariness.

“Look,” Feuilly gets to his feet, and he doesn't stumble, but it's definitely not just in Combeferre's imagination that he moves very slowly; gingerly, the way you'd move after falling down a flight of stairs and finding yourself covered with aches and pains. “I told you I'm fine. So you can stop worrying. Worry about how we're going to get out of here if Enjolras doesn't show up.” He makes his way to a nearby bed and sits down, drawing his legs up onto it and leaning back against the wall.

Combeferre resists the urge to look at him sidelong. Then he, too, stands, suddenly feeling the absence of Jehan more than ever. Since their arrival here; since they'd been locked up in this room, he realises he'd rarely left Jehan's side. Where does that leave him now?

Time passes in great clumps, crawling with a sluggish, viscous quality. Courfeyrac tries to keep up an intermittent stream of empty chatter, and occasionally Joly or Lesgles will chime in, but for the most part, no one says anything much. When the key turns in the lock, they all (save for Marius and Feuilly, who are both asleep) look up sharply, hoping for Enjolras but expecting more officials.

It is their expectations, and not their hopes, which are matched. A lone official steps just inside the door.

“Checks,” he tells them in a monotone. Combeferre, unable to help himself, seizes the opportunity.

“Subject Feuilly needs medical attention,” he says, and the official raises his eyebrows at his audacity.

“Subject Feuilly looks sound asleep to me,” he replies, and Combeferre shakes his head, trying to form adequate words to convey the urgency he feels.

“You people don't really learn from your mistakes, do you?” Grantaire leans forward to look at the official more directly. “You already screwed up with Prouvaire. Are you seriously going to do it again? You're like dogs; people higher up than you, like Enjolras' father, can train you; make you do interesting tricks, but mostly you just eat, sleep, shit and make the same stupid mistakes over and over.”

The official's eyes bulge, but he seems at least to recognise the veracity of Grantaire's statement, because he says tersely: “I'll send for a medic,” and then disappears again, locking the door behind him.

The moment he's gone, Courfeyrac turns to Grantaire with an expression of mingled astonishment and excitement that hovers perilously close to awe. “What the heck was that? He could've taken you off to be Altered right there and then?”

Grantaire only shrugs. “It's going to happen eventually,” he says. And he really does believe it, Combeferre realises. He's resigned, and trying to use that resignation to combat his fear. It's the only weapon he's got.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Jean Valjean enters the room for a third time to find the boys even further depleted in number. The tall blond boy and another with hair of a pale reddish-gold colour are both missing, but there is a new addition to their number, too; a smallish, round-faced youth who somehow manages to look even more lost and out of place than the others.

He has barely gone two paces into the room when Courfeyrac, abandoning all pretence, rushes to him.

“They've taken Enjolras!” he bursts out, “He was supposed to escape with the keys Feuilly stole, and bring Bahorel with him, but it's been hours and he hasn't come back and now we're all really worried and-”

“What're you doing?” Joly cuts across him in a panic, “You're going to get us all into trouble, and we'll never-”

But he, too, is interrupted, this time by Valjean himself.

“It's alright,” says the medic, “I am here to help you in whatever way I can. Courfeyrac knows that, but I told him not to tell you. For him to disregard my request,” he gives Courfeyrac an unreadable look, “Things must be very serious. You can tell me everything while I attend to the boy who is ill.”

And so they do. Valjean – for that is how he later introduces himself to them – shines little lights into Feuilly's eyes and checks his heart-rate and asks him quiet questions while the others take it in turns to relate the events of the past day or so. When he learns of Jehan's fate, Valjean's expression becomes graver still and he turns his gaze upward for a moment, as though looking at something beyond the ceiling of the room.

“Could you have helped him?” Lesgles asks, and Valjean hesitates just a moment, before answering:

“Perhaps. I don't know. I wish I'd had the chance to try. But wishing cannot help him, God rest his soul, and perhaps I can help you, Feuilly, at least.” Then, to Combeferre, “You were very wise to insist that someone see him.” Feuilly's eyes widen at this, and Valjean casts him a brief, reassuring glance before pressing on. “This is what we will do. Feuilly will come with me; the rest of you will wait here. As soon as I can, I will go to Enjolras and tell the men overseeing his procedure to hold off on account of anomalies in his initial test results. These things are delicate. I'll tell them I made a mistake and need to re-administer the tests; they'll have no choice but to let me. Once Enjolras is safely away, we'll decide how best to proceed.”

“What about Subject Bahorel?” Grantaire wants to know, “Forget about him, did you?”

The sadness in Valjean's age-faded brown eyes tells them all they need to know.

“Come on,” he says heavily to Feuilly, “Can you stand? That's it. Slowly. There, you're alright; it's alright.” To the others; “Try to get some rest. Tomorrow will not be easy.”

And yet there is a strange sort of hope in his words, and Combeferre, watching him guide a disorientated Feuilly out of the room, feels, for the first time since their arrival, a little reassured.


	10. Chapter 10

The corridors are endless, and all that white hurts his eyes.

The walls seem by turns too close and too far away. Sometimes, the world tilts alarmingly. The medic has a hand on his arm, guiding and keeping him upright. Feuilly wants to lean on him for support, but he doesn't. He walks, to the nauseating sway of the walls. In-out-in. One-two-three. Steps. Breaths. Little; tentative.

Neither of them speak. Feuilly is thinking of Mrs Berghan's house; of the other kids she fosters. What's Eponine doing with herself, now he's gone? If she's started hanging around with Luc Montparnasse and those others again, he'll – he'll what, exactly? Because there isn't an awful lot he can do.

One. Two. Three. Small steps. Straight line. Forward, forward.

Until Valjean, suddenly, steers him to one side, moving toward the white wall so quickly that it looms. They stop, and then Feuilly becomes aware of footsteps.

They are many. They are rhythmical. They go one-two-three at a quicker pace than him. There are no voices, and somehow, the silence is disquieting.

He lifts his head; turns to look just as they come around the corner.

They are a line of boys, moving in neat, single file, almost perfectly in step with one another. They wear uniforms, pressed and grey and just as neat. Their heads are shaven and mouths expressionless lines. Their eyes have nothing in them; no fear or sadness. They do not even look tired or resigned. They are flat. They see, but they don't see.

Feuilly's breath catches in his throat. There's a sick, rancid taste at the back of his mouth, which is very dry.

The Altered boys file past him and Valjean. They are not led by an official, because they do not need to be.

Feuilly wonders if the boys remember their families; their friends. Do they even remember who they are?

How can anyone believe that they are doing this for the sake of the greater good?

The last of the boys disappears, and all that's left is the receding sound of their footsteps. Feuilly doubles over, retching, but he's eaten hardly anything since his arrival here and so nothing comes up except an awful sour taste that, even as he straightens up, gasping, won't go away.

The medic says nothing, but the look he gives Feuilly is full of pity and he hates it; hates it for making him feel so perilously close to coming apart.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Valjean approaches room 146AL with a dread weight in his chest. He has the unshakeable sense that if he allows Subject Enjolras to be Altered, he will have failed not only him but the others, too. And if the procedure is already under-way – which it may well be – there is nothing at all he can do about it.

He walks quickly, and thinks of Subject Courfeyrac, bolting in wild terror for the door. Then he thinks of Subject Feuilly, so weak and so resolved. The next few hours will be crucial for him. In a sense, Valjean thinks, it is unfortunate that though the boy's body is almost giving up, his mind refuses to. This might be easier on him if he were to let go.

Reaching the door, he shakes himself mentally and slides his key into the lock. The door swings silently open and the bright whorls of Subject Enjolras' unshaven hair against the thin pillow bring more relief than Valjean could have thought possible. The boy is still himself; he hasn't been Altered.

Officer Javert watches over the boy. A muscle in Valjean's jaw tightens. Of course it would be him.

“There's been a mistake with Subject Enjolras' tests,” he says tersely, “An anomaly. He needs to be tested again before he is altered.”

Javert's pale grey eyes narrow. “What anomaly is this, exactly?”

This, at least, Valjean has thought of. “Section 16C; it's an imbalance, I believe, but best to be on the safe side.”

For a moment, Javert appears to actually consider this. Then:

“I have spoken to the boy's father. He's given orders for the procedure to be done today.”

“Then log it as having already been performed. He won't know.”

This, he realises immediately, was the wrong thing to say. Javert's eyes narrow, and he opens his mouth to bite out a response, but Valjean forestalls him.

“Officer Enjolras will want this done the correct way,” he says, “Especially being as this is his son. It won't take long. An hour, perhaps. Two at most.”

This doesn't leave him with much time, he knows. Still, he has to have some way of bargaining.

Javert folds his arms. “Orders are orders.”

“Two hours are all I need. It's protocol; you know it is.”

There's a moment of silence. Valjean, though he knows he shouldn't, takes it for consent. The beds are wheeled, in this room, for taking down to the operating theatre. He moves to the central bed and tugs it sharply to align the wheels. His eyes pass briefly over Subject Bahorel in the neighbouring bed, looking up sightless at the ceiling. Then he begins, amid protests from Javert, to wheel Enjolras' bed in the direction of the door.

Javert gets to his feet. “I didn't approve this!” he says.

Valjean does not look at him. “Two hours,” he says brusquely.

He does not give Javert time to reply. In a matter of moments, he is gone, taking Enjolras with him.

Javert looks at the closed door, his mouth forming a thin line. The procedure needs to be performed today. It's a direct order. Flouting it will cost him his job.

A thought occurs to him. How much will the surgeons actually know about Subject Enjolras' appearance? Would they recognise him, especially once his head is shaven?...

They will perform the procedure today. And it will be Enjolras' name on the paperwork.

It just won't be Enjolras they wheel into surgery.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

“Who do you think they'll take next?” asks Joly, plucking nervously at the cuff of his sleeve. The boys are gathered close together, now, save for Grantaire. There are six of them left in this room, now. Marius and Courfeyrac sit on one bed; Joly, Lesgles and Combeferre on another neighbouring one.

“Don't think about it,” says Combeferre. It's good advice that he himself isn't following. When he's not thinking about whether Enjolras and Feuilly will be alright, he's pondering the fate of the rest of them. It's exhausting.

“We'll escape before they can take any more of us,” Courfeyrac says. But he sounds as though he's trying to convince himself, just as much as the rest of them, and so the attempt falls very flat.

They are all silent for a few moments. Then Joly speaks again. He can't help himself.

“D'you think Feuilly will be alright? That medic seemed worried.”

“He'll be fine,” replies Combeferre, automatically. Is it better to fill the silence with lies that none of them will believe, or to face their prospects honestly> His shoulders slump. It's his first real moment of weakness, and he's seventeen, wrenched away suddenly from his home and his friends and his family; thrown into this place without any warning. He's been trying to cope with it, but really, he sees now, it isn't something you cope with so much as endure. It will change you in the end, anyway, whether you want it to or not.

“Where d'you think we'll go when we get out?” Marius asks Courfeyrac, still clinging to hope. Courfeyrac reels off possible places, gesturing expanisvely.

He looks like an actor in a play. A particularly bad one.

Combeferre stands up. To his own surprise, it's Grantaire; blunt, jaded Grantaire, whose company he wants now. He wants honesty, and not fear or desperate hope. The other boy is the closest thing there is to that, just now.

He sits down beside Grantaire, who barely turns his head to look at him.

“You never did tell us why they got you,” he says.

Grantaire smiles a thin, humourless smile. “They didn't,” he says. “My parents submitted me.”

Combeferre's eyes pull wide. He wants to ask why, but he won't. If Grantaire wants to talk about it – which he doesn't seem to – he will. What kind of people would want their own son to be Altered? What kind of lies did they tell themselves to make themselves believe that was even slightly acceptable?

These are the questions that are churning over and over in his mind when the door opens again.

The official from the train stands there, straight-backed. There are two more officials, behind him.

None of them speak. One guards the door while the one from the train, and another, approach the bed where Marius and Courfeyrac are sitting.

Courfeyrac begins to struggle the moment he is yanked to his feet, but with his injured arm, it's useless.

It's then that Combeferre notices: the officer from the train is wielding a battery-powered razor. The other official holds Courfeyrac still as best he can while the one from the train takes the razor to Courfeyrac's dark russet curls. They fall to the white tiles amid a soft hum.

From where he's sitting, Combeferre can see the other boy's face. Courfeyrac is crying; silent, unrestrained sobs. Because he knows what's coming.

They shave your head before they Alter you.

Why they're doing it in front of the other boys, Combeferre isn't sure. To scare them, probably. To shock them.

Or maybe because there's going to be no waiting around. Maybe because Courfeyrac's procedure is happening today.

Stray curls land on his shoulders. His face looks smaller; more vulnerable, without his hair. He looks very young.

And as the officials lead him from the room, he doesn't resist. That's the most final, wrenching thing of all.

And when the door's shut behind him, Combeferre can't tear his eyes away from the small pile of chestnut-coloured hair on the otherwise clean floor.


	11. Chapter 11

Enjolras wakes to a hoarse, wordless shout. Someone slams something down forcibly on a hard surface, and he can hear the serrated sound of their breathing.

“Wha-what is it?” he hears a voice ask. Young; tentative; familiar.

Even to him, only just waking, the tension in the air is palpable. Enjolras blinks open his eyes; their lids feel heavy, weighted perhaps not as much by sleep itself as by the reluctance to wake.

He must wake, though, because there are still things that need to be done and he somehow hasn't yet been Altered - 

Hasn't yet been – the realisation hits him with a sort of sharp combination of relief and pain, like the pins and needles you get in your feet for sitting on them too long. His nerves sing with it. He's here. He's here and he's thinking for himself. The world isn't some half-made haze of narrow truths. Everything snaps into focus.

One of the medics, tall and greying, is standing at a long metal desk. Like all other rooms in this building, there is no window in here, but above this desk, there is a picture. The landscape it depicts – green; rolling hills; a spiky smattering of trees – is like nothing Enjolras has seen in reality before. It looks simple and stark and very lonely,. The medic doesn't appear to be looking at the picture; his head is down and his broad shoulders hunched.

Then he turns, and Enjolras recognises him as the man who took Courfeyrac away to see to his arm. He has a narrow face with a high forehead; his mouth is a sombre line, quivering now with suppressed feeling, and the laugh-lines bracketing his eyes do not, Enjolras suspects, come from laughing.

Enjolras follows the man's gaze to a white bed positioned parallel to his own. White sheets. White pillow. And on the white sheets, a figure who seems somehow smaller than Enjolras remembers. Feuilly, curled up on his side, the thin, clear fall of an IV line looping from his wrist.

“What is it?” he asks again, and Enjolras thinks that either he's imagining things, or the other boy's voice sounds faintly slurred.

“Not now,” says the medic; there is in his voice a pulled-tight, nasal quality. “Not now...you're too – not now. You must rest.”

“Please,” Feuilly struggles to sit, propping himself on an elbow. “It's one of the others, isn't it? Something's happened. Tell me. Please,” he adds again, hastily, remembering himself.

“I can't have you worrying. You will make yourself very ill. You saw what shock did to that poor boy, S- Jehan Prouvaire.”

“I know,” says Feuilly, and his voice trembles, barely perceptibly; more a vibration than a tremble, really. “But I'll only imagine the worst anyway, so you should tell me.”

This reasoning seems to make the medic hesitate. Enjolras takes advantage of the momentary lull to sit up and put forth his own opinion in swift, economical rhythm:

“I think you should tell us. We have a right to know.”

The medic gives a small start of surprise and turns to look at him. Feuilly's eyes widen.

“You're awake sooner than I'd expected,” says the medic – J. Valjean, Enjolras reads on his small, white name-badge, now that he's facing him more fully. “Good. We haven't – well, we haven't much time. Things are moving very quickly.”

“What do you mean? What's going on?”

Valjean pulls in what might be a steadying breath. “I will tell you,” he says, “Since there is no way I can keep it from you for long. I am going to help you to escape. The other boys know this. When I retrieved you from Officer Javert's – care, however, he ordered one of the other boys be taken to be Altered in your place.” He pauses, as though it is an effort to make himself say what comes next. “The procedure is already under way.”

Enjolras stands up. The movement, furious and fluid at its outset, falters when he stumbles and almost falls under waves of dizziness from the receding effects of the sedative.

“You traded my life for someone else's?” his voice is older and colder than his years.

“I did not know,” says Valjean, “I didn't know they would take someone else instead of you.”

“And if you had? If you had known? Would you have tried to save me anyway?” His emphasis on the word 'save' is acid. For a moment, Valjean does not seem to know what to say.

“I would have found another way,” he responds, quietly; steadily, “At least, I would have tried.”

Enjolras rights himself, with some difficulty, wrapping a hand around a bedpost. He feels wobbly and off-balance, and he hates it, this lack of control over himself. He's grown up knowing that control is important, and that not all control is bad (he has, he thinks wryly, his father to thank for that).

“Who was it?” this is Feuilly, battling with tangled sheets and the In an attempt to sit up. “Who did they take?” there is in his voice a new sharpness born of panic; panic exacerbated, Enjolras thinks, by disorientation. The other boy's eyes won't focus. His face is fever-flushed. It makes Enjolras think of Jehan Prouvaire. “Who did they take?”

“I don't know. He'll be entered into all the books as Subject Enjolras, now. I'm sorry,” he adds, and he looks it, Enjolras thinks. He looks – weighted down; that's the only way to really describe it.

“You were just trying to help us,” says Feuilly, but there's a hint of something a little like bitterness in his voice.

Enjolras is moving rapidly from anger to acceptance; a sort of ferocious resignation, if such a thing is possible. It's the sort of feeling you have when you think to yourself, all right, this has happened, and it's horrible, and it's unfair, but all we can do is deal with it. “You said you'd help us escape,” he says now, “How?”

Valjean considers his options. “We have very little time,” he tells Enjolras and Feuilly, “Less than an hour, now. Then the officials will come looking for you, Enjolras. I only have one plan, and it's very dangerous – particularly for you,” here, he gives Enjolras a glance; apologetic; regretful; taut, “But it's all there is.” He pauses. “I want you to return the keys to Feuilly. In a few minutes, I will escort you back to the others, Feuilly. When the clock reaches quarter past the hour, you need to unlock the door. Turn right; take the stairs at the end of the corridor; go all the way down, into the basement. You will find a blue door in the basement marked “Private”. There should be a blue key that matches it, on the ring of keys you have. Go through the door into the tunnel beyond it (it's where our – where the deliveries come in). The tunnel will take you out in the middle of the town. Wait until morning, so you can lose yourselves in the rush of people. Then take the first train you can, away from here.”

Feuilly's eyes have stopped faltering. They stay fixed on Valjean's grave face.

“What about Enjolras?”

Pause. Brittle and tight. Expectant, and not in any good sense of the word.

“Enjolras will join you, I hope. He will be with me; I intend to let the officials come for him, and after that he will have to trust me – you all will. But I promise that I will do everything I can to make sure Enjolras joins you in the tunnel. Wait for fifteen minutes, If he is not with you by then, it means I have failed you.”

The way he says this, so matter-of-fact, makes Enjolras realise that the medic must have been planning for something of this nature for a long time. He couldn't have known how little time they'd have, but this – he has wanted this all along, and that gives Enjolras a new respect for him.

“I trust you,” he says. “I'll do whatever you need me to do.”

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Marius is crying.

He cries quietly, face turned to the wall, whole body trembling. Grantaire shakes his head at him and makes a derisive noise.

No one comforts Marius. What could they possibly say?

Combeferre thinks about why he is here. Does he regret it; writing the things he wrote? Maybe. Not because he's scared, exactly, but because he thinks of how much more he could've done, if he'd been more careful. Perhaps, in some small way, he could have actually made a difference. That essay changed nothing; affected no one; brought no freedom or hope or truth. Jehan's sacrifice, giving himself up for a boy he didn't know, was more potent. Combeferre is here for nothing.

A key turns in the lock. It is a mark of their resignation that no one looks at the door. They are beyond fear, now, and beyond hope.

The medic named Valjean is there, and Feuilly is with him. The medic looks grim, and Feuilly looks hardly any better than he'd done before.

“Feuilly will tell you everything,” Valjean says. “Good luck.”

That's all he says. Then Feuilly steps into the room and Valjean locks the door behind him and they hear his footsteps retreating.

Feuilly's gaze travels rapidly over the other five remaining.

“Courfeyrac.”

The name leaves him in a soft rush. The colour drains from his face, but his expression is frozen; numb. Framed by the high, wide doorway, he looks very small. He takes a single step backwards, so that he can lean back against the door. He releases a slow breath; squeezes his eyes shut; opens them again.

“The officials -” Joly starts, and Feuilly holds up a hand to stop him.

“I know,” he says. “They took him.”

Combeferre stands up. Something in the numb, helpless shock of the other boy renews his sense of urgency; makes him feel as though he has woken up.

“Well, we'll have to do this for Courfeyrac and Jehan and Bahorel,” he says, going to stand beside Feuilly but speaking to them all. Marius, scrubbing furiously at his face with the back of his hand, turns to look. “And for their families and friends. For -” he pauses; what had the girl's name been? Courfeyrac had mentioned her several times. “For Aneille. If we get out, we can find her – we can find them all, and tell them what happened. We can tell them how bravely they fought.” He can't think of quite the right words, he finds, and for some reason it's Grantaire he looks at while he stalls. The other boy stares stonily back; impassive. “Don't we at least owe it to them to try?”

The others nod. “We'll do it,” says Lesgles with forced enthusiasm. “We'll do it!”

Grantaire shrugs. “Well, I'm not going to sit around up here on my own while you lot try to escape, am I?” He smiles a wry, slanting smile. “So what's the plan, Feuilly?”

And it's only after the other boy has begun to speak – tentatively at first, but gaining confidence as he goes on – that Combeferre realises what Grantaire has said:

Feuilly. Not Subject Feuilly. Just his name. That is all.

Grantaire, however reluctant he is to admit it, is changing.


	12. Chapter 12

“We're leaving Enjolras?” There is a sharp, serrated edge to Grantaire's voice, quite different from his usual resignation. “He gave himself up for us, and we're leaving him?”

Combeferre looks at him in surprise. What has happened in the past few minutes to change the other boy, he cannot begin to understand. But the change is there, growing steadily more perceptible. Grantaire, still wearing his resignation like perfectly transparent armour, seems to have a new fierceness beneath it.

“Valjean says it's the only thing to do. He says we have to trust him.”

Grantaire snorts at this response and gives Feuilly a derisive look. “Trust him,” he repeats, flatly. “He's asking a lot from us, isn't he? Trust an Official. Does he think we're idiots?”

Feuilly shakes his head wearily. “He knows there's nothing else we can do,” he answers. “And anyway, what have we got to lose? Even if we get caught and killed – maybe – maybe it's better than the alternative.” His voice cracks on the second 'maybe', and Marius lets out a fresh sob, quiet and guttural.

The clock ticks.

Quarter past the hour; that's what Valjean said. It is almost five minutes past, now.

“No,” says Grantaire bluntly, “This isn't how it's going to be. We're going to go and get him.”

Joly's eyes are wide. “Enjolras?”

And Grantaire laughs humourlessly. “No, Courfeyrac. Yes, of course Enjolras. Who else? That medic's going to get him killed or Altered or – I don't know – something.”

“We can't,” says Combeferre, and though his voice is level, something approaching panic is uncoiling itself ominously in the pit of his stomach. “We'll all die. We'll have achieved nothing.”

“D'you think I care what we achieve?” there's that laugh again. Grantaire is on his feet, now, and pacing. “If we leave him to die, we're no better than them. D'you realise that? We're all cowards. I know I'm a coward, but at least I admit it. You lot, though – have you heard yourselves, whining about escaping? It's. Not. Going. To. Happen. Look what happened to Courfeyrac, when he tried. Look what's happening to him, now. He's not going to be able to think for himself. He's not going to have a personality. He might as well be a vegetable. He probably wouldn't recognise any of us. D'you get that? That's what's going to happen to us all. And we should get used to it.” There's a dull flush in his cheeks, and his hands are clenched at his sides. He looks more alive than ever Combeferre or the others have yet seen him.

Marius is staring at him. The tears streaming down his face are silent, now. His shoulder-muscles bunch convulsively.

“Don't bother to help us, then,” Combeferre says, and perhaps it is ironic how cool and curt his sudden feeling of warmth towards Marius makes him sound, “Go looking for Enjolras, and get yourself killed. It's not as if we can stop you. Do it; I'm sure Enjolras will be so grateful for it.”

Grantaire, continuing to pace, ignores him.

Joly and Lesgles exchange glances. Joly's feet tap a nervous, skittering rhythm on the tiled floor.

Feuilly keeps glancing back, over his shoulder, at the clock. He looks exhausted and drawn. The discovery of Courfeyrac's fate has robbed him of whatever little energy the medic had been able to return to him.

And the clock ticks.

At fifteen minutes past eleven, Feuilly, with an effort, gets to his feet and, drawing the faintly clinking ring of keys from his pocket, goes to the door. They are all surprised by the ease with which it opens.

“We're doing this,” says Lesgles in a hushed voice, “We're actually doing this.”

Grantaire shoots him a glance – staccato; irritable.

Their first steps into the spotless, deserted corridor are tiny and furtive. By default, since he has the keys, Feuilly goes first. Joly and Lesgles follow. Then Combeferre, Marius, and lastly Grantaire, who shuts the door behind him. It emits a very final sort of click.

“What if we run into guards?” asks Joly, his voice barely more than a whisper. “What do we do then?”

“Run,” suggests Grantaire with a hoarse laugh, “And try not to get shot at.”

The first few paces are painfully slow, but they pick up speed quickly, staying close to the walls although in the bright, open expanse of corridor this wouldn't help a bit.

No one speaks.

They are almost at the end of the corridor when the quiet – such a carefully crafted illusion, here – is shattered.

A shot rings out.

It comes from somewhere above their heads. It resounds, a brief whip-crack that somehow goes on and on and on.

One floor up: that is where the medics carry out their treatment.

For a moment, everyone stays very still. It's a moment of terrified sideways glances.

Then Grantaire begins to run – in the opposite direction from the one in which they're supposed to be going.

The others tear after him, Marius letting out a cry of “Wait!” which makes the others flinch collectively, though as it turns out, the thundering of their footsteps is enough to alert any nearby officials to the fact that something is amiss.

Grantaire's shoes squeak on the tiles. He runs with his head down and his shoulders set, a charging bull. Combeferre's breath burns in his chest. Feuilly staggers; almost falls, but Lesgles helps him up. His face is paper-white and he's trembling from exertion.

Around a corner; into a stairwell. Grantaire pelts up the stairs, the others in pursuit.

Somewhere behind them, doors are opening.

At the top of the stairs, Grantaire himself shoulders open a door.

And then, as they emerge into a corridor that looks almost exactly like the one below it, more doors swing open.

Out of them come officials; less, actually, than Combeferre expects, but still too many for his liking. There are maybe four or five of them.

Grantaire barrels past them, desperation rendering him with a new strength. Marius lurches out of grasping hands. Lesgles and Joly run close together, charging straight towards an official who, seeing that they show no sign of slowing or swerving, has to leap out of the way at the last moment.

Combeferre is trying fruitlessly to fend off an official when he hears a garbled, agonised cry behind him. Full of dull dread, he cranes back to look.

The blink-and-you-miss-it sliver of a needle's glint catches his eye first. And then his gaze is fixed on Feuilly.

The other boy's eyes roll back in his head. His muscles stiffen and twitch; his body jerks forcefully. The official lets go of him in surprise and he falls onto the floor, still twitching, thrashing, legs thrumming uselessly against the tiled surface. His back arches, and he makes a low noise at the back of his throat which chills Combeferre to his core.

“What did you do?” the official who has hold of Combeferre's arm demands of the one standing over Feuilly. “You were supposed to sedate him; that's all.”

The other man shakes his head. He looks bewildered, Combeferre realises, and a little frantic. “I did,” he says, holding up the needle.

Feuilly can't breathe. He's drawing in frantic, ragged little gasps. His chest heaves. Veins cord darkly in his neck. Combeferre hadn't thought anything could be worse than watching Jehan Prouvaire die, but this – this is worse.

The others have stopped; turned back. Even Grantaire hovers, uncertain.

Combeferre tries to tug free of the official's grasp, and is so surprised when the man actually lets him go that he stumbles. The officials, too, are at sea. This wasn't supposed to happen. They can't afford any more mistakes.

As with Jehan, Combeferre finds himself kneeling on the cold floor beside this boy who, until a few days ago, had been a stranger. Saying Feuilly's name elicits no response from him; he either does not recognise Combeferre, or does not realise he is there at all.

“Do something,” he hears himself begging the officials, “Can't you do something?”

And the one who had been holding onto him unholsters his gun.

“Horace,” says the official with the needle, “Horace, what are you doing? You can't -”

A muscle in Horace's jaw twitches.

“No,” says Combeferre, “No, I didn't mean -”

The official named Horace fires his weapon.

The boy's body gives a final, feeble jerk at the impact. His eyes go very wide and his breath leaves him in a choked, fragmented gasp. Blood, slow and viscous, darkens the pale fabric of his shirt.

“You shouldn't have done that,” says the official with the needle, quietly. “It's not procedure.”

“A lot of things around here aren't procedure. The kid was in pain. We couldn't have Altered him like that, anyway.”

The official with the needle shakes his head, lips forming a tight line. “We could've tried,” he says, and the one called Horace has the grace to look disgusted by this.

“Listen to yourself,” he says, holstering his gun. He approaches Combeferre and pulls him to his feet. Mechanically, he complies. “I'm sorry you have to go through this,” Horace tells him, “But it's -” he breaks off, then resumes, doggedly, “It's for the best. You'll thank me, one day.”

“No I won't,” says Combeferre, tonelessly. “I won't remember you. I won't remember anything.”

And then, at the very end of the corridor, another door bursts open, and out of it, his face and clothes spattered with dark blood and his hair bright in the fluorescent lights, steps Enjolras.


	13. Chapter 13

For a moment, no one says a word. The official named Horace tightens his grip on Combeferre's arm, as though the sight of Enjolras might cause him to renew his efforts to escape. For his part, Combeferre is too surprised to move even had he wanted to. He, like everyone else, cannot tear his eyes from the bloodied figure at the end of the corridor.

Enjolras steps forward.

“Officer Valjean is dead,” he says. His voice is toneless; his eyes grim. He looks much, much older than his seventeen years. “It was another official who killed him. He gave his life for me, so I could have a chance at escaping. He told me to run.” He pauses, pointedly. “I'm not running.”

A couple of the officials laugh. The one standing over Feuilly's body laughs the loudest, and the sound draws Enjolras' gaze. Something in his expression tightens at the sight of the other boy whose blood is pooling on the white tiles.

He takes a step forward. He is armed, Combeferre realises, not that it would do them much good. Enjolras is one boy; there are no fewer than six officials, here.

“Would've been smarter to run,” Grantaire mutters.

If Enjolras hears him, he makes no sign of it. “Which of you killed him?” he wants to know. There is no anger in his voice – it is cool, quiet and even. “Which of you did this?” When no one answers, he goes on: “I wasn't given much chance to know him – I don't even know his first name – but I know Feuilly was brave and strong and good. He didn't need to be Altered; he didn't need fixing. None of us do. We're no different than you are. We're just people. If you hadn't trapped us here like this, you wouldn't have any reason to be afraid of us – and you are afraid; no point pretending you're not. And why would you? Why would you have reason to fear us?” He takes another step forward. If he is afraid himself, he doesn't show it. “But you gave us reason to fight you. You made us hate you. You killed Jehan Prouvaire and you killed Feuilly. You killed Bahorel and Courfeyrac, too, though you don't see it that way.” He nods at the nearest of the officials, and there is something like a smile on his face, except that there is no mirth in it; no joy, or even satisfaction. “Well done. You wanted to make us into weapons, and you have.”

And then – this boy of seventeen with his pale hair and his hard, youthful face – he levels his pistol at the official standing over Feuilly. And he pulls back the trigger – and the moment is charged as if the air is silently singing; that's the only way to describe it - 

and he fires.

For a moment, the man's arms pinwheel; he clutches at nothing. Then he falls backwards, gracelessly. And in that moment, he – not only he, but all the others like him – cease to be something terrifying; something beyond comprehension, and become only men. So far as Combeferre can see, in giving this man his death, Enjolras has granted him his humanity. The fullness of his life stretches out, now, unavoidable. He must have friends; perhaps a family; people who care about him. People who now face the same horror that Courfeyrac's parents face – that Jehan Prouvaire's parents face – that Bahorel's parents face. And of course it isn't the same thing; Enjolras is not like these men, but the family of the fallen official won't see it that way. They'll only see that someone they care for is gone, irrevocably.

Perhaps Enjolras sees all this, too, because he pauses for a fraction of a moment before he goes on, levelly:

“Let them go, or more of you will die like him. I don't know how many bullets are left in this gun, but I won't stop until they're all used up.”

The man clutching Joly's arms is the first to react. He lets go of his captive, and the boy stumbles forward, knock-kneed and trembling; wordless. Lesgles and Marius' captors give them up; then Grantaire's (the boy gives the official a scathing look before stepping away). Horace is reluctant to let go of Combeferre. He turns him so that they are facing one another, and looks intently down into his face as though he is trying to tell him something. Combeferre stares back, and for once is at a loss. Whatever Horace is trying to tell him, he does not understand. Finally, the official lets him go and, with the others, he retraces his steps, more slowly, back down the corridor. He affords a last glance over his shoulder – sees the officials ranged there; sees Feuilly with his eyes still open and glassy. Then they have rounded the corner and they're going, quietly, down the stairs. Marius is sobbing again, silently. Lesgles and Joly walk close together; the latter is shaking profusely. Grantaire walks just behind Enjolras, as though to plant his feet exactly where the other planted his. They are going. Soon, they will be gone.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

On the ground floor, a shot rings out. It is a warning shot. It is enough to make the boys freeze in their tracks.

Then, footsteps, many and in unison.

The boys look at each other, trading glance for horrified glance.

Enjolras grits his teeth. “Run,” is all he says.

And they almost do, except that Grantaire is standing stock still on Enjolras' right, and will not budge. Marius tugs at his arm. Grantaire shoves him away.

“Go,” he says roughly. There is vehemence in the way he says it; the sort of vehemence Combeferre has only heard from one person. Enjolras.

He himself pulls Marius away, and they run.

Oddly, now that the building's exit is so close, Combeferre finds he does not want to get there. He does not want it, while Enjolras and Grantaire still wait behind – wait to die. But his feet pound the smooth, slippery tiles and he runs; runs for Bahorel, for Jehan Prouvaire, for Courfeyrac. Runs for Feuilly. Runs for Enjolras and Grantaire themselves – for their families. Runs with every last reserve of strength and resolve he has. Somehow manages not to trip or stumble, though he is not agile.

Behind him, shots ring out. And though the sound of their bodies hitting the ground is lost amid a rush of footsteps, he knows that Enjolras and Grantaire must both be lost.

They round another corner. The doors are there – the same doors they came in through. Marius and Lesgles wrestle with them. Marius is no longer crying; his expression is taut – determined.

Joly stumbles and falters. Combeferre, thinking of Feuilly, puts out a hand to steady him; urges him onward.

More shots ring out. Joly's eyes widen in horrified surprise, but he is unharmed.

“It's alright,” Combeferre says to him, “You're alright.”

A dull, quick heat is spreading up his back and through his stomach. The next breath he takes burns in his chest and he is surprised.

Ahead of him, the doors burst open. Marius and Lesgles look back.

“Come on!” Lesgles shouts.

Combeferre tries to take another step, but for some reason, his legs won't carry him. He falls to his knees. Beyond the door, the sky is the colour of spilled ink.

He thinks maybe he is telling Joly to go, but he can't hear himself. The slow, thick thud of his heart hammering against his ribs is the loudest sound. Joly, white-faced, begins to move – stops, looks back – and then there are more loud, distant sounds and he runs again, and Combeferre's vision blurs so that when he reaches the door he is only a dark shape vaulting out into the unknown and unknowable, and Combeferre watches him go, and thinks that this isn't so bad, really. There are worse ways to go (thinking of Jehan and Feuilly). There are things he'll never do, and things – and – and – but – but he's too tired to be afraid – too tired...

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Officer Enjolras, tall and gaunt, stands at the foot of the stairs and tells the men to hold their fire.

“How many got away?” he demands to know, “How many?”

“Three, sir,” says one man, his Adam's apple bobbing.

The Chief Official regards the scene. His own son lies not far from his feet, the left side of his head rendered a bloody pulp by two bullets; the blood from a further three staining his shirt. Something in Officer Enjolras' gut twists; a muscle at the corner of his mouth twitches.

He cannot look at his son any longer.

His gaze goes, instead, to the boy beside him – a dark-haired boy, who lies with his head thrown back and his lips slightly parted, like an offering. He finds he cannot look too long at him, either.

He walks past them; past the scattered ranks of men in their grey uniforms. The doors are flung wide. Not so far from them, there is another boy, curled on his side like one asleep.

“Do not go after those boys,” says the Chief Officer, “I do not want my son to have died for nothing.” He pauses. “Besides, there will be other boys. Many of them. What are three, in thousands.”


	14. Epilogue

It's dark outside. The train rattles along its tracks in an indeterminate line.

Marius Pontmercy sits with his back to to the window and his knees pulled up to his chest. He presses his hands together between his knees to keep them from shaking.

“We shouldn't have left him like that,” says Joly, and he doesn't need to clarify who it is that he's referring to.

No one says anything.

There had been ten of them, once. Now there are three.

“We can't ever go home, can we?” asks Lesgles. This, too, they all know to be true. Even now that they are free, they can never return to their old lives. Officials would come for them within hours, bundling them off to the nearest research facility.

Marius thinks of Cosette. She must have cried, when she discovered where he'd been taken, mustn't she? Her face, tear-washed, rises up behind his eyes and he realises that one day, he might not be able to call her image to mind quite so easily.

“I want to write letters,” he says.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Eponine Thenardier is in the poky kitchen when the letter comes. She's leaning against the table, jutting her hip in what she hopes is a vaguely provocative gesture, and talking to Montparnasse. The radio is on, blaring some cheesy, peppy tune from the 2020s, or '30s, maybe.

Mrs Bergham, foster matriarch and self-professed battleaxe, appears in the doorway. Strands of flyaway grey-white hair are escaping from her haphazard bun. Her expression is even more grim than is usual.

“What?” Montparnasse demands, his lips curving upwards in a smirk.

Predictably, Mrs Bergham glowers. “I'll thank you not to take that tone with me,” she says abruptly. Then, without preamble: “Eponine, I've got a letter I think you should read.”

Eponine shrugs, rolls her eyes at Montparnasse, and takes the letter. It is written on fine-ruled paper torn hurriedly from a spiral-bound notebook. It isn't signed.

The letter tells her that Feuilly – the writer hadn't known his first name – is dead. It tells her that he had died as a result of an adverse reaction to a sedative; that he and some others had tried to escape. That he had been brave and kind, and that the writer is alive and free in part because of him.

She stares at the paper until the words blur. She remembers laughing with him – arguing with him – grappling with him for the TV remote-control. She remembers his thin, earnest face with those large hazel eyes.

“Oh,” she says in a small voice, quite unlike her own.

Then, the letter still clutched in her hand, she barrels past Mrs Bergham, almost bowling her over.

She runs. Runs until her muscles pulse with a dull ache; until her lungs run out of air. Then she collapses unceremoniously onto the damp pavement.

Fucking officials.

But anger does nothing to help. There is a hollow, empty space inside of her; a void reserved for a warm, righteously indignant, endearingly head-in-the-clouds boy who had once been her friend.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Jehan Prouvaire's mother rocks herself to and fro, her body wracked by silent sobs. She wraps her arms tightly around herself, as though to keep from coming apart.

Her husband holds her, his own tears damming up behind his eyes. He will allow himself to cry later, when he is alone.

There is a deep purple orchid in a vase on their living room windowsill; it is the only witness to their quiet tragedy.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Aneille Laurier weeps, too, lying face-down on her bed; head cradled in her arms.

The letter, brought to her by his parents, tells her how brave he was; how persistent and resilient; how he had tried to give the rest of them a little light and hope. But the letter-writer only calls him Courfeyrac; they don't know him, really.

She knows him. She has been to the fair with him; watched bad action films with him; kissed him fiercely in the park near his house. She has laughed at his terrible jokes and blushed at his unabashed compliments.

The letter goes on to tell he that he has been Altered. She thinks she has resigned herself to this already, but seeing it in writing is different.

In her mind she sees him; expression blank; eyes flat and soulless.

She hates the writer of this letter for telling her all of this. She would rather not know.

She would rather he was dead.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Alain Combeferre loses his son and his wife almost in one fell swoop.

The day of the letter, he goes out to work. He goes because it is the only means of distracting himself. He goes because he cannot deal with Heloise and her boundless grief. And because really, he already lost his son, the day the officials came to take him away.

After the fact, he realises his mistake; Heloise, who is – was – fragile at the very best of times, needed someone to stay with her.

She goes quietly. Much more quietly than their firstborn, or so he's heard. Sleeping pills, washed down with strong port wine. She lies on her side on their bed, her eyes closed slackly.

The heady scent of the wine fills the room. His brain reconfigures it as the scent of loss. After this, he will never be able to stand it.

He sits on the edge of the bed, hands limp in his lap, and realises that you can be a villain not only by dint of the things you have done, but also the things you haven't.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Cosette reads Marius' letter in the sunlit hallway. The paper reverberates in her trembling hands.

Marius is alive and unharmed – and free.

She is in his thoughts – and will be, always – but he cannot see her. He hopes she understands that.

The house is very quiet. Cosette sits down on the bottom step, her skirt pooling around her. Her whole body shakes, overtaken by a duelling combination of relief and deep sorrow. She wants more than anything to go to him, but how could she? She has no idea where he is, and it's better that way.

But.

But he escaped. And he's alright. That's what matters, she tells herself, that's what's important.

Why is it, then, that she, too, cannot keep herself from crying?

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

The boys disembark the train at different stops, to make themselves more difficult to track. Marius is the last to get off.

He stands at daybreak in a new city. The windows of the skyscrapers are blinding. A paperboy careens past on a sleek bike.

Marius does not know what to do. He cannot be Marius Pontmercy any longer. He is a boy without a name, or a past, or a friend.

But beyond all of that – eclipsing all of that – he is free.


End file.
